HARSH
Yes, HARSH was the Wordle answer on September 13, 2024 (Wordle #1182).
As an opener, it rules out about 91.2% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈhɑːʃ/[ˈhɑːʃ]/ˈhäːʃ/
- Adjective
-
Unpleasantly rough to the touch or other senses.
- Adjective
-
Severe or cruel.
“harsh decision”
- Verb
-
To negatively criticize.
“Quit harshing me already, I said that I was sorry!”
- Verb
-
To put a damper on (a mood).
“Dude, you're harshing my buzz.”
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
Used oncePast Wordle answer: September 13, 2024 (#1182).
See the full page for that puzzle: September 13, 2024 (#1182).
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 HARSH performs as a guess
HARSH 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 79.3% of games, misses completely in 20.7%, and leaves about 208 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,572 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 HARSH 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 HARSH 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 HARSH in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
HARSH can come back 71 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 HARSH; 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 HARSH
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to HARSH.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing HARSH:
Research on HARSH
Game-tree analysis and word research for HARSH, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with HARSH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,896 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 HARSH can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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
Synonyms ROUGH coarse abrasive open HEAVY LOOSE
Opposites kind LIGHT pleasant agreeable
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- HARSH sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 14 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 40 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
In a sentence
That was too harsh of you.
Don't be so harsh with her.
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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0).