5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess F tier for first-turn info

HOLLY

Yes, HOLLY was the Wordle answer on October 28, 2025 (Wordle #1592).

As an opener, it rules out about 86.3% of possible answers.

Open Solver with HOLLY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈhɒli//ˈhɔlɪj//ˈhɑli/

Noun

Any of various shrubs or (mostly) small trees, of the genus Ilex, either evergreen or deciduous, used as decoration especially at Christmas.

Noun

The wood from this tree.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: October 28, 2025 (#1592).

See the full page for that puzzle: October 28, 2025 (#1592).

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

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How verification and withdrawal work

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How HOLLY performs as a guess

HOLLY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 68.8% of games, misses completely in 31.2%, and leaves about 326 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,529 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.83 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

H___Y H in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position H__L_ H in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _O__Y O in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in HOLLY.

First-turn measures

All four describe HOLLY 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.

3.90 Entropy (bits)
326 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
86.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 18% of evaluated openers
2.04 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HOLLY 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.

3.83 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#12,529 Rank among openers
Opening with HOLLY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 3.83 average. It ranks #12,529 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
722
4 guesses
1,214
5 guesses
340
6 guesses
32
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
1 vowels
Common:
LO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
69%
Green tile
33%
All gray
31%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S C O L D
F I L T H
H O L L Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches HOLLY in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

HOLLY can come back 78 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

740 answers
254 answers
249 answers
188 answers
176 answers
126 answers
59 answers
51 answers
45 answers
37 answers
35 answers
30 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1L1L1Y4
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Try next

RAISE RAINE TRONE DANSE TRICE RANSE

Strategy after playing HOLLY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HOLLY:

31% chance
Suggested:
RAISE
11% chance
Suggested:
RAINE
10% chance
Suggested:
TRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

31.2% →
RAISE 6.19 bits
10.7% →
RAINE 5.33 bits
10.5% →
TRONE 5.27 bits
7.9% →
DANSE 4.73 bits
7.4% →
TRICE 5.75 bits
5.3% →
RANSE 4.76 bits
2.5% →
SCRAE 3.89 bits
2.1% →
SAUTE 4.62 bits
1.9% →
STORE 3.51 bits
1.6% →
STORE 4.52 bits

Research on HOLLY

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

Optimal play

Opening with HOLLY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #12,111 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 HOLLY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.83, at or below the proven-optimal 3.83, 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 HAHLEE.

Rhymes with MOLLY JOLLY DOLLY POLLY FOLLY

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, HOLLY is a kind of tree.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HOLLY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 8 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.1 of 5).

In a sentence

Do you know where Holly is?
© tatoeba.org contributor maydoo (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Where was the last time you saw Holly?
© tatoeba.org contributor MrSener95 (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).