5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier for first-turn info

HONKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with HONKS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of honk

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of honk

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 HONKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HONKS 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 71.4% of games, misses completely in 28.6%, and leaves about 271 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,921 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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___S H in the 1st position and S in the 5th position H__K_ H in the 1st position and K in the 4th position _O__S O in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position HO_KS H in the 1st position, O in the 2nd position, K in the 4th position, and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe HONKS 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.

4.24 Entropy (bits)
271 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 35% of evaluated openers
1.71 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HONKS 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#6,921 Rank among openers
Opening with HONKS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #6,921 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
38
3 guesses
871
4 guesses
1,218
5 guesses
211
6 guesses
16
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
1 vowels
Common:
NOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
22%
All gray
29%

Feedback distribution

HONKS can come back 76 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

680 answers
250 answers
173 answers
167 answers
133 answers
117 answers
69 answers
67 answers
63 answers
52 answers
46 answers
41 answers
40 answers
31 answers
30 answers
30 answers
26 answers
26 answers
23 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1N1K5S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

RAILE STARE TALER ARIEL MARLE TRACE

Strategy after playing HONKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HONKS:

29% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
11% chance
Suggested:
STARE
7% chance
Suggested:
TALER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.6% →
RAILE 6.30 bits
10.5% →
STARE 5.71 bits
7.3% →
TALER 5.30 bits
7.0% →
ARIEL 5.60 bits
5.6% →
MARLE 4.84 bits
4.9% →
TRACE 5.58 bits
2.9% →
SERAL 4.74 bits
2.8% →
CADIE 4.59 bits
2.7% →
GLARE 4.48 bits
2.2% →
SIENT 4.53 bits

Research on HONKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with HONKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,358 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.86 guesses at best and is rank #3,161 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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

One syllable Say it HAWNGKS.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, HONKS is a kind of cry or go.

Synonyms sick cast cat CHUCK PURGE VOMIT

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HONKS 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sound (4.9 of 5).

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).