Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier for first-turn info

HABUS

HABUS is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

As an opener, it rules out about 90.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of habu

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

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 HABUS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HABUS as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 77.6% of games, misses completely in 22.4%, and leaves about 222 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,238 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 HABUS 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.

4.33 Entropy (bits)
222 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 40% of evaluated openers
1.62 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HABUS 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
#8,238 Rank among openers
Opening with HABUS 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 #8,238 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
815
4 guesses
1,232
5 guesses
246
6 guesses
11
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:
ASU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
21%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

HABUS can come back 81 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

532 answers
311 answers
216 answers
169 answers
162 answers
110 answers
107 answers
68 answers
62 answers
46 answers
44 answers
39 answers
37 answers
35 answers
32 answers
31 answers
27 answers
25 answers
24 answers
19 answers
17 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4A1B3U1S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing HABUS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HABUS:

22% chance
Suggested:
LINER
13% chance
Suggested:
ALERT
9% chance
Suggested:
SPITE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.4%
LINER 5.96 bits
13.1%
ALERT 5.53 bits
9.1%
SPITE 5.50 bits
7.1%
TRINE 4.72 bits
6.8%
PLIER 4.99 bits
4.6%
TRICE 5.50 bits
4.5%
PEART 4.91 bits
2.9%
DROLE 4.89 bits
2.6%
SPURT 4.25 bits
1.9%
WRITE 4.69 bits

Research on HABUS

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

Optimal play

Opening with HABUS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,149 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.89 guesses at best and is rank #4,021 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 HABUHS. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.