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

HOAST

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A cough.

Verb

To cough.

Noun

Obsolete form of host.

Verb

Obsolete form of host.

Alternative forms: haust, host

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

Etymology

From Middle English *host, *hoste, from Old Norse hósti (“a cough”), akin to Icelandic hósti, Swedish hosta, Danish hoste (“a cough”). More at whoost.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use HOAST in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.5% 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 HOAST performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HOAST 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 83.5% of games, misses completely in 16.5%, and leaves about 131 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #375 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.58 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 HOAST 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.

5.24 Entropy (bits)
131 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HOAST 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.

3.58 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#375 Rank among openers
Opening with HOAST left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.58 average. It ranks #375 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
65
3 guesses
1,045
4 guesses
1,072
5 guesses
160
6 guesses
11

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AOST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
38%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

HOAST can come back 119 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

393 answers
246 answers
135 answers
120 answers
114 answers
110 answers
75 answers
69 answers
62 answers
60 answers
53 answers
43 answers
42 answers
35 answers
34 answers
33 answers
31 answers
27 answers
25 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1A1S1T1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing HOAST

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HOAST:

16% chance
Suggested:
LINER
10% chance
Suggested:
MARLE
6% chance
Suggested:
CRINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.5% →
LINER 5.96 bits
10.3% →
MARLE 5.24 bits
5.7% →
CRINE 5.22 bits
5.0% →
DROLE 4.61 bits
4.8% →
PLIER 5.34 bits
4.6% →
DRICE 4.76 bits
3.1% →
TRITE 5.21 bits
2.9% →
BARON 4.54 bits
2.6% →
TARTE 4.68 bits
2.5% →
PLIER 4.70 bits

Research on HOAST

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

Optimal play

Opening with HOAST, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,369 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #973 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.58, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).