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

HONER

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

One who hones.

Noun

A tool used to hone.

Verb

Misspelling of honor and honour.

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 HONER performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HONER 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 87.6% of games, misses completely in 12.4%, and leaves about 113 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,290 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 HONER 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.

5.24 Entropy (bits)
113 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 93% of evaluated openers
0.70 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HONER 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#1,290 Rank among openers
Opening with HONER solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.61 average. It ranks #1,290 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
78
3 guesses
974
4 guesses
1,118
5 guesses
166
6 guesses
18
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ENOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
32%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

HONER can come back 117 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

295 answers
256 answers
152 answers
146 answers
106 answers
92 answers
89 answers
85 answers
82 answers
59 answers
58 answers
57 answers
54 answers
40 answers
40 answers
34 answers
34 answers
33 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
25 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1N1E1R1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing HONER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HONER:

12% chance
Suggested:
SAULT
11% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
6% chance
Suggested:
SAULT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.4%
SAULT 5.85 bits
10.8%
SLATE 5.80 bits
6.4%
SAULT 5.20 bits
6.1%
TRACE 4.82 bits
4.5%
SAINT 5.27 bits
3.9%
STOOL 4.97 bits
3.7%
SAULT 3.74 bits
3.6%
SAULT 4.94 bits
3.5%
SADLY 4.56 bits
2.5%
EASEL 4.37 bits

Research on HONER

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

Optimal play

Opening with HONER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.63 guesses and ranks #876 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 HONER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.63, 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 HOHNUR.

Rhymes with OWNER DONOR LONER TONER

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HONER 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).