5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess F tier for first-turn info

HIPPO

Yes, HIPPO was the Wordle answer on November 29, 2024 (Wordle #1259).

As an opener, it rules out about 84.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with HIPPO Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈhɪpəʊ//ˈhɪpoʊ/

Noun

Clipping of hippopotamus.

Noun

An overweight or obese person.

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

Used once

Past Wordle answer: November 29, 2024 (#1259).

See the full page for that puzzle: November 29, 2024 (#1259).

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

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How HIPPO performs as a guess

HIPPO 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 68.5% of games, misses completely in 31.5%, and leaves about 366 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,289 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.86 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

H___O H in the 1st position and O in the 5th position H__P_ H in the 1st position and P in the 4th position _I__O I in the 2nd position and O in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in HIPPO.

First-turn measures

All four describe HIPPO 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.

3.60 Entropy (bits)
366 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
84.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 9% of evaluated openers
2.35 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HIPPO 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.

3.86 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#13,289 Rank among openers
Opening with HIPPO left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.86 average. It ranks #13,289 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
38
3 guesses
680
4 guesses
1,238
5 guesses
369
6 guesses
27
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
IO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
68%
Green tile
17%
All gray
32%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I N K
G I Z M O
H I P P O

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches HIPPO in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

HIPPO can come back 63 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

748 answers
405 answers
284 answers
140 answers
129 answers
112 answers
65 answers
50 answers
43 answers
41 answers
39 answers
34 answers
33 answers
27 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
15 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4I1P3P3O1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Try next

TALER LEANT REAST SANED SLANE TRUCE

Strategy after playing HIPPO

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HIPPO:

32% chance
Suggested:
TALER
17% chance
Suggested:
TALER
12% chance
Suggested:
LEANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

31.5% →
TALER 6.06 bits
17.1% →
TALER 5.22 bits
12.0% →
LEANT 5.45 bits
5.9% →
REAST 5.60 bits
5.4% →
SANED 4.66 bits
4.7% →
SLANE 5.56 bits
2.7% →
TRUCE 4.59 bits
2.1% →
TOXIN 4.22 bits
1.8% →
CASTE 4.19 bits
1.7% →
SLICE 4.42 bits

Research on HIPPO

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

Optimal play

Opening with HIPPO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.86 guesses and ranks #13,075 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.00 guesses at best and is rank #6,265 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.86, at or below the proven-optimal 3.86, 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 HIHPOH.

Rhymes with ZIPPO

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HIPPO sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 97 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.9 of 5).

In a sentence

The hippo is not related to the horse.
© tatoeba.org contributor Barend (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I saw a hippo at the zoo.
© tatoeba.org contributor hinto4 (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).