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

HAVER

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈheɪvə//ˈheːvəɹ//ˈavə/

Verb

To hem and haw.

Verb

To talk foolishly; to chatter.

Noun

The cereal grain of cultivated oats (Avena sativa).

Noun

One who has something (in various senses).

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

Etymology

Borrowed from Scots haver, from Middle English haver, from Old Norse hafri (“oat, oats”), from Proto-Germanic *habrô (“oat, oats”), from Proto-Indo-European *kapro- (“goat”). Cognate with Dutch haver (“oats”) and German Hafer (“oat”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

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

Rhymes with NEVER LEVER SEVER BEVER

Use HAVER in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.0% 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

No

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

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 HAVER performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HAVER 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 84.6% of games, misses completely in 15.4%, and leaves about 143 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,371 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 HAVER 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.

4.84 Entropy (bits)
143 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HAVER 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
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#8,371 Rank among openers
Opening with HAVER solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,371 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
70
3 guesses
808
4 guesses
1,187
5 guesses
271
6 guesses
18

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
29%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

HAVER can come back 103 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

367 answers
231 answers
170 answers
166 answers
124 answers
124 answers
115 answers
108 answers
98 answers
86 answers
81 answers
65 answers
46 answers
37 answers
35 answers
34 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4A1V4E1R1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing HAVER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HAVER:

15% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
10% chance
Suggested:
SEINE
7% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.4% →
SOILY 5.70 bits
9.7% →
SEINE 5.43 bits
7.1% →
SLANT 5.28 bits
7.0% →
DROIT 4.86 bits
5.2% →
SLANT 5.01 bits
5.2% →
SONLY 4.56 bits
4.8% →
TOISE 4.52 bits
4.5% →
TOUCH 5.04 bits
4.1% →
SLANT 4.28 bits
3.6% →
SOILY 3.56 bits

Research on HAVER

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

Optimal play

Opening with HAVER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,108 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 HAVER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73; proven optimal play reaches 3.72. 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
HAVER 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).