HORDE
Yes, HORDE was the Wordle answer on May 3, 2023 (Wordle #683).
As an opener, it rules out about 94.6% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /hɔːd//hɔɹd//hoːd/
- Noun
-
A wandering troop or gang; especially, a clan or tribe of a nomadic people (originally Tatars) migrating from place to place for the sake of pasturage, plunder, etc.; a predatory multitude.
- Noun
-
A large number of people or things.
“We were beset by a horde of street vendors who thought we were tourists and would buy their cheap souvenirs.”
- Verb
-
To travel en masse; to flock.
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: May 3, 2023 (#683).
See the full page for that puzzle: May 3, 2023 (#683).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How HORDE performs as a guess
HORDE 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 84.2% of games, misses completely in 15.8%, and leaves about 129 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,985 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe HORDE 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How HORDE 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches HORDE in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
HORDE can come back 119 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for HORDE; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing HORDE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to HORDE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing HORDE:
Research on HORDE
Game-tree analysis and word research for HORDE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with HORDE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,296 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 HORDE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, HORDE is a kind of multitude or community.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- HORDE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 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 (3.7 of 5).
In a sentence
A horde of angry toddlers is the scariest thing I can imagine.
Tom was surrounded by a horde of screaming fangirls.
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).