HOKEY
HOKEY is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
As an opener, it rules out about 91.5% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈhəʊki//ˈhoʊki/
- Adjective
-
Phony, as if a hoax; noticeably contrived; of obviously flimsy credibility or quality.
“When asked for his book report, Chad came up with a series of hokier and hokier excuses.”
- Adjective
-
Corny; overly or unbelievably sentimental.
“Terry hated going to the cinema with Pat; she always chose hokey romantic comedies that made him want to gag.”
Alternative forms: hokie, hoaky, hoky
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
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
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
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 →How HOKEY performs as a guess
Wordle accepts HOKEY 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 84.8% of games, misses completely in 15.2%, and leaves about 202 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,244 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe HOKEY 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 HOKEY 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
HOKEY can come back 73 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 HOKEY; 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 HOKEY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to HOKEY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing HOKEY:
Research on HOKEY
Game-tree analysis and word research for HOKEY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with HOKEY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,483 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.99 guesses at best and is rank #6,001 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.82; proven optimal play reaches 3.77. 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 HOHKEE.
Related meanings
Synonyms artificial sentimental contrived emotional affected unnatural
Opposites unaffected
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- HOKEY sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
In a sentence
How can you stomach that hokey docusoap?
Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).