HIVES
HIVES is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /haɪvz/
- Noun
-
Itchy, swollen, red areas of the skin which can appear quickly in response to an allergen or due to other conditions.
- Noun
-
plural of hive
- Verb
-
third-person singular simple present indicative of hive
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
Uncertain, but frequently connected with heave, even if such a derivation is phonologically difficult.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it HYVZ.
Rhymes with WIVES DIVES FIVES RIVES VIVES
In a sentence
Tom broke out in hives.
I have got two hives in the village.
Use HIVES in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 91.8% of possible answers.
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
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
No completed appearanceNo 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.
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See what the public sample says →HIVES in Connections
1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #1137
Reveal this appearance's category
HIVES appeared in SYMPTOMS OF AN ALLERGIC REACTION (yellow group).
How HIVES performs as a guess
Wordle accepts HIVES 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 80.6% of games, misses completely in 19.4%, and leaves about 195 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,865 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 HIVES 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 HIVES 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
Feedback distribution
HIVES can come back 77 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 HIVES; 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 HIVES
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to HIVES.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing HIVES:
Research on HIVES
Game-tree analysis and word research for HIVES, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with HIVES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,038 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 HIVES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- HIVES 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.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.2 of 5).
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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).