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

COVEY

COVEY is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 91.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈkʌvi//ˈkəʊvi//ˈkoʊvi/

Noun

A brood or family of partridges (family Phasianidae), which includes game birds such as grouse (tribe Tetraonini) and ptarmigans (tribe Tetraonini, genus Lagopus).

Noun

A group of other birds, such as quail (superfamily Phasianoidea).

Verb

To gather into a group.

Alternative forms: covie

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

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

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How COVEY performs as a guess

COVEY 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 83.4% of games, misses completely in 16.6%, and leaves about 198 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,643 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 COVEY 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.

4.42 Entropy (bits)
198 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
91.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 46% of evaluated openers
1.53 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How COVEY 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#8,643 Rank among openers
Opening with COVEY solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,643 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
54
3 guesses
783
4 guesses
1,265
5 guesses
237
6 guesses
14
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
43%
All gray
17%

Example solver route

R O A T E
V I N Y L
C O V E Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches COVEY in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

COVEY can come back 86 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

399 answers
394 answers
194 answers
193 answers
193 answers
91 answers
88 answers
70 answers
69 answers
66 answers
55 answers
52 answers
35 answers
32 answers
31 answers
27 answers
27 answers
24 answers
22 answers
20 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

C3O1V4E1Y4
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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

Strategy after playing COVEY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing COVEY:

17% chance
Suggested:
SLART
17% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
8% chance
Suggested:
ARSON

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.8%
SLART 5.76 bits
16.6%
SLANT 6.23 bits
8.2%
ARSON 5.12 bits
8.1%
SAINT 4.83 bits
8.1%
STAIR 4.79 bits
3.8%
SAUNT 4.54 bits
3.7%
SHALT 4.74 bits
2.9%
SNARE 4.27 bits
2.9%
LEARE 4.75 bits
2.8%
CHAIR 4.47 bits

Research on COVEY

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

Optimal play

Opening with COVEY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,168 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.96 guesses at best and is rank #5,484 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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.

How it sounds

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

Rhymes with LOVIE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, COVEY is a kind of gathering or flock.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
COVEY 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).