HEAVE
Yes, HEAVE was the Wordle answer on March 12, 2024 (Wordle #997).
As an opener, it rules out about 90.5% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈhiːv/[ˈhɪi̯v]
- Verb
-
To lift with difficulty; to raise with some effort; to lift (a heavy thing).
“We heaved the chest-of-drawers up to the second-floor landing.”
- Verb
-
To throw, cast.
“They hove rocks into the pond.”
- Noun
-
An effort to raise something, such as a weight or one's own body, or to move something heavy.
“We gave one more heave and the wall toppled over at last.”
- Noun
-
An upward motion; a rising; a swell or distention, as of the breast in difficult breathing, of the waves, of the earth in an earthquake, etc.
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: March 12, 2024 (#997).
See the full page for that puzzle: March 12, 2024 (#997).
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 HEAVE performs as a guess
HEAVE 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 77.0% of games, misses completely in 23.0%, and leaves about 226 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,185 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.85 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 HEAVE 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 HEAVE 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 HEAVE in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
HEAVE can come back 78 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 HEAVE; 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 HEAVE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to HEAVE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing HEAVE:
Research on HEAVE
Game-tree analysis and word research for HEAVE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with HEAVE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #11,941 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 HEAVE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.85; proven optimal play reaches 3.83. 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, HEAVE is a kind of rise or movement.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- HEAVE 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.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.9 of 5).
In a sentence
Tom has just been given the heave-ho.
This ship is outfitted with a windlass to heave up the anchor.
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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).