COUGH
COUGH is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.
As an opener, it rules out about 87.3% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /kɒf//kɔːf//kɔf/
- Verb
-
Sometimes followed by up: to force (something) out of the lungs or throat by pushing air from the lungs through the glottis (causing a short, explosive sound), and out through the mouth.
“Sometimes she coughed up blood.”
- Verb
-
To cause (oneself or something) to be in a certain condition in the manner described in etymology 1 sense 1.1.
“He almost coughed himself into a fit.”
- Noun
-
A sudden, often involuntary expulsion of air from the lungs through the glottis (causing a short, explosive sound), and out through the mouth.
“Behind me, I heard a distinct, dry cough.”
- Noun
-
A bout of repeated coughing (verb etymology 1 sense 2.1); also, a medical condition that causes one to cough.
“whooping cough”
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Wordle status
A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.
Playable guess
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How COUGH performs as a guess
COUGH is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 68.2% of games, misses completely in 31.8%, and leaves about 301 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,087 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe COUGH 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How COUGH 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches COUGH in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
COUGH can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for COUGH; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing COUGH
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to COUGH.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing COUGH:
Research on COUGH
Game-tree analysis and word research for COUGH, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with COUGH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,579 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.90 guesses at best and is rank #4,194 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.76, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, COUGH is a kind of symptom or release.
Synonyms coughing
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- COUGH sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 9 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Learner level
- Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 79 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
In a sentence
Do you have a cough?
It's just a little cough.
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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0).