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

HOLLO

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A cry of "hollo"

Verb

To cry "hollo"

Interjection

Hey, hello

Interjection

hello (expressing puzzlement or discovery)

Alternative forms: holler, holla, holloa, hollow

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

Etymology

See halloo, and compare holla.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it HAHLOH.

Rhymes with POLLO MOLLO

Related meanings

Synonyms call cry scream SHOUT yell roar

Use HOLLO in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 80.5% 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 HOLLO performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HOLLO 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 59.9% of games, misses completely in 40.1%, and leaves about 465 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,875 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.89 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 HOLLO 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.

3.46 Entropy (bits)
465 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
80.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HOLLO 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.

3.89 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.75 Spread of game lengths
#13,875 Rank among openers
Opening with HOLLO left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.75 means those games clustered within about 0.75 of a guess of the 3.89 average. It ranks #13,875 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
35
3 guesses
657
4 guesses
1,229
5 guesses
388
6 guesses
42

Composition

3/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
LO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
60%
Green tile
25%
All gray
40%

Feedback distribution

HOLLO can come back 61 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

956 answers
271 answers
207 answers
193 answers
142 answers
79 answers
48 answers
47 answers
43 answers
38 answers
33 answers
32 answers
25 answers
25 answers
25 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1L1L1O1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing HOLLO

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HOLLO:

40% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
11% chance
Suggested:
RAINE
9% chance
Suggested:
SANER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

40.1% →
TIARE 6.21 bits
11.4% →
RAINE 5.30 bits
8.7% →
SANER 5.34 bits
8.1% →
TRICE 5.70 bits
6.0% →
RANSE 4.76 bits
3.3% →
MAISE 4.83 bits
2.0% →
BEAST 4.76 bits
2.0% →
GLACE 4.03 bits
1.8% →
TEARY 4.62 bits
1.6% →
TARGE 4.63 bits

Research on HOLLO

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

Optimal play

Opening with HOLLO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.91 guesses and ranks #13,950 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 HOLLO can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.89, at or below the proven-optimal 3.91, 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
HOLLO sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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).