Possible answer Not used yet F tier for first-turn info

BUSHY

BUSHY is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbʊʃi//ˈbɵʃɪj//ˈbʉʃe/

Adjective

Like a bush in having many branches that spread out densely in all directions.

“the bushy tail of a squirrel”

Adjective

Growing thickly.

“bushy eyebrows”

Noun

Alternative form of bushie.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it BUUSHEE.

Rhymes with PUSHY CUSHY

Related meanings

Synonyms shaggy

Opposites groomed

In a sentence

He has a big bushy beard.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He's got a big bushy beard.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use BUSHY in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 85.4% of possible answers.

Wordle status

A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.

Playable guess

Yes

Included in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.

Possible answer

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How BUSHY performs as a guess

BUSHY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 66.7% of games, misses completely in 33.3%, and leaves about 349 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,406 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 guesses in games solved within six turns.

Try your feedback pattern

Tap the tiles to match your feedback, then see the ranked follow-up guesses.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.

First-turn measures

All four describe BUSHY used as an opening guess. Entropy is the same idea as “avg ruled out” on a log scale: a higher number means the guess splits the possible answers into more, smaller groups.

3.89 Entropy (bits)
349 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
85.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BUSHY performed in the previous complete opener benchmark, against its captured answer snapshot. These research figures are separate from today's solver recommendations. See the data page for the method.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#10,406 Rank among openers
Opening with BUSHY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.77 average. It ranks #10,406 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
769
4 guesses
1,232
5 guesses
286
6 guesses
19

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
SU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
67%
Green tile
29%
All gray
33%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I M Y
H U S S Y
B U S H Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches BUSHY in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

BUSHY can come back 79 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

794 answers
293 answers
194 answers
157 answers
136 answers
89 answers
84 answers
69 answers
60 answers
49 answers
39 answers
34 answers
31 answers
28 answers
22 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

Base letter-value totals for BUSHY; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.

Scrabble

B3U1S1H4Y4
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.

Strategy after playing BUSHY

What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to BUSHY.

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BUSHY:

33% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
12% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
8% chance
Suggested:
TALER

Follow-ups for common patterns

Ranked follow-up guesses for the 10 most common feedback patterns.

33.3% →
ARIEL 6.19 bits
12.3% →
TIARE 5.61 bits
8.1% →
TALER 4.89 bits
6.6% →
COATE 5.74 bits
5.7% →
TRONE 5.35 bits
3.7% →
LIANE 5.27 bits
3.5% →
SLATE 4.77 bits
2.9% →
TARGE 4.75 bits
2.5% →
SAUNT 4.43 bits
2.1% →
OATER 5.00 bits

Research on BUSHY

Game-tree analysis and word research for BUSHY, with an explanation for each figure.

Optimal play

Opening with BUSHY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,455 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with BUSHY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, because the two figures score different answer lists.

These figures come from exhaustive game-tree search and are exact for the NYT lists of July 2023 (3,158 answers). They do not use the site's working answer pool.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
BUSHY sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.1 of 5).

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).