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

BUXOM

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈbʌksəm/

Adjective

Having a full, voluptuous figure, especially possessing large breasts.

Adjective

Full of health, vigour, and good temper.

Alternative forms: bucksome

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

Etymology

From Middle English buxom, also ibucsum, ibuhsum (“bendsome, flexible, pliant, obedient”), from Old English bōcsum, *būhsum, *ġebūhsum (“bendsome, pliant, obedient”), from Proto-West Germanic *beuhsam, *beugsam, equivalent to bow (“to bend, bow at the waist”) + -some or buck (“to bend, buckle, kick”) + -some.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

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

Related meanings

Synonyms stacked CURVY BUSTY fat

Opposites thin

In a sentence

Mary's character was a buxom amazon.
© tatoeba.org contributor carlosalberto (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He was accompanied by a bevy of buxom babes.
© tatoeba.org contributor darinmex (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use BUXOM in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 78.4% 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 BUXOM performs as a guess

BUXOM 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 57.7% of games, misses completely in 42.3%, and leaves about 514 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,055 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.90 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 BUXOM 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.

3.31 Entropy (bits)
514 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
78.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How BUXOM 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.

3.90 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#14,055 Rank among openers
Opening with BUXOM left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.90 average. It ranks #14,055 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
29
3 guesses
626
4 guesses
1,257
5 guesses
411
6 guesses
26

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
OU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
58%
Green tile
21%
All gray
42%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I N K
G U M B O
B U X O M

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches BUXOM in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

BUXOM can come back 59 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1009 answers
354 answers
155 answers
127 answers
117 answers
94 answers
86 answers
59 answers
54 answers
33 answers
28 answers
25 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

B3U1X8O1M3
Total: 16 points

Words With Friends

Total: 19 points

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

Strategy after playing BUXOM

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing BUXOM:

42% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
15% chance
Suggested:
RONTE
7% chance
Suggested:
STANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

42.3% →
TIARE 6.16 bits
14.8% →
RONTE 5.22 bits
6.5% →
STANE 5.29 bits
5.3% →
RAILE 5.46 bits
4.9% →
SLYER 4.53 bits
3.9% →
LEANT 5.02 bits
3.6% →
PALER 4.67 bits
2.5% →
CRUET 4.34 bits
2.3% →
MATEY 4.26 bits
1.4% →
TALER 4.42 bits

Research on BUXOM

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

Optimal play

Opening with BUXOM, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.90 guesses and ranks #13,833 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.02 guesses at best and is rank #6,472 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.90; proven optimal play reaches 3.90. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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
BUXOM sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

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).