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

HOGOS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 83.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of hogo

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 HOGOS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HOGOS 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 64.5% of games, misses completely in 35.5%, and leaves about 387 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,926 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.81 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 HOGOS 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.

3.72 Entropy (bits)
387 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
83.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 12% of evaluated openers
2.23 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HOGOS 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.

3.81 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#11,926 Rank among openers
Opening with HOGOS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.81 average. It ranks #11,926 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
37
3 guesses
729
4 guesses
1,260
5 guesses
304
6 guesses
24
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:
OS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
64%
Green tile
23%
All gray
36%

Feedback distribution

HOGOS can come back 67 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

843 answers
334 answers
142 answers
136 answers
132 answers
130 answers
81 answers
67 answers
51 answers
39 answers
38 answers
37 answers
32 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1G2O1S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing HOGOS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HOGOS:

36% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
14% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
6% chance
Suggested:
CRATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

35.5%
RAILE 6.20 bits
14.1%
TIARE 5.65 bits
6.0%
CRATE 5.22 bits
5.7%
TRICE 5.57 bits
5.6%
TALER 4.54 bits
5.5%
RAINE 5.55 bits
3.4%
SERAL 4.62 bits
2.8%
MARLE 4.61 bits
2.1%
REACT 4.31 bits
1.6%
RAILE 4.66 bits

Research on HOGOS

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

Optimal play

Opening with HOGOS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,473 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 HOGOS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.81, at or below the proven-optimal 3.84, 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 HOHGOHS. 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.