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

HOOCH

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

As an opener, it rules out about 74.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /huːt͡ʃ/

Noun

An alcoholic beverage, especially an inferior or illicit one and especially liquor such as whisky.

Noun

A thatched hut, CHU, or any simple dwelling.

Alternative forms: hootch

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 HOOCH performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HOOCH 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 51.0% of games, misses completely in 49.0%, and leaves about 618 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,394 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.94 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 HOOCH 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.

3.16 Entropy (bits)
618 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
74.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 3% of evaluated openers
2.78 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HOOCH 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.

3.94 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.75 Spread of game lengths
#14,394 Rank among openers
Opening with HOOCH left 2 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 3.94 average. It ranks #14,394 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
27
3 guesses
606
4 guesses
1,247
5 guesses
422
6 guesses
50
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

3/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
O

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
51%
Green tile
31%
All gray
49%

Feedback distribution

HOOCH can come back 50 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1163 answers
165 answers
162 answers
134 answers
123 answers
99 answers
72 answers
50 answers
40 answers
39 answers
36 answers
34 answers
28 answers
25 answers
25 answers
21 answers
19 answers
16 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1O1C3H4
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing HOOCH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HOOCH:

49% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
7% chance
Suggested:
SLYER
7% chance
Suggested:
CARLE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

49.0%
RAILE 6.20 bits
7.0%
SLYER 4.63 bits
6.8%
CARLE 5.45 bits
5.6%
MANOR 5.12 bits
5.2%
GRATE 4.73 bits
4.2%
STIRE 5.41 bits
3.0%
RAISE 4.74 bits
2.1%
STRAE 4.65 bits
1.7%
PALET 4.00 bits
1.6%
RAINE 4.59 bits

Research on HOOCH

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

Optimal play

Opening with HOOCH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.96 guesses and ranks #14,493 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.12 guesses at best and is rank #7,213 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.94, at or below the proven-optimal 3.96, 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 HOOCH.

Rhymes with POOCH

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, HOOCH is a kind of alcohol.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HOOCH 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 taste (3.2 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).