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

HODAD

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Someone who comes to the beach and has a surfboard, but never surfs, or that surfs poorly and annoys the local seasoned surfers.

Alternative forms: ho-dad, hodaddy

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

No

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

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How HODAD performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HODAD 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 75.0% of games, misses completely in 25.0%, and leaves about 290 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,187 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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 HODAD 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.

3.96 Entropy (bits)
290 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 21% of evaluated openers
1.99 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HODAD 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.

3.82 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#12,187 Rank among openers
Opening with HODAD left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.82 average. It ranks #12,187 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
704
4 guesses
1,258
5 guesses
325
6 guesses
19
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:
AO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
26%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

HODAD can come back 74 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

594 answers
461 answers
200 answers
159 answers
140 answers
100 answers
83 answers
74 answers
69 answers
43 answers
41 answers
40 answers
27 answers
24 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1D2A1D2
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing HODAD

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HODAD:

25% chance
Suggested:
SLIER
19% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
8% chance
Suggested:
TRINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.0%
SLIER 6.08 bits
19.4%
TARSE 5.46 bits
8.4%
TRINE 5.25 bits
6.7%
SLYER 4.61 bits
5.9%
CRISE 5.38 bits
4.2%
TALER 4.65 bits
3.5%
BARON 4.61 bits
3.1%
CARSE 4.61 bits
2.9%
TRINE 4.96 bits
1.8%
SLEER 4.30 bits

Research on HODAD

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

Optimal play

Opening with HODAD, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,070 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 HODAD can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.82; proven optimal play reaches 3.81. 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it HOHDUHD. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.