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

HOUSE

Yes, HOUSE was the Wordle answer on December 11, 2023 (Wordle #905).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈhaʊ̯s/[ˈhaʊ̯s]/ˈhaws/

Noun

A structure built or serving as an abode of human beings.

“This is my house and my family's ancestral home.”

Noun

A container; a thing which houses another.

Verb

To keep within a structure or container.

“The car is housed in the garage.”

Verb

To admit to residence; to harbor.

Alternative forms: hoose, houss

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From Middle English housen, from Old English hūsian, from Proto-Germanic *hūsōną (“to house, live, dwell”), from the noun (see above). Compare Dutch huizen (“to live, dwell, reside”), German Low German husen (“to live, dwell, reside”), German hausen (“to live, dwell, reside”), Norwegian Nynorsk husa (“to house”), Faroese húsa (“to house”), Icelandic húsa (“to shelter, house”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it HOWS.

Rhymes with MOUSE ROUSE GAUSS LOUSE DOUSE

Related meanings

Synonyms home family sign firm theatre household

In a sentence

I was in the house.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Are you in the house?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use HOUSE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.4% of possible answers.

Open Solver with HOUSE Open Word Finder

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: December 11, 2023 (#905).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 11, 2023 (#905).

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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HOUSE in Connections

15 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . Showing the 5 most recent. A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How HOUSE performs as a guess

HOUSE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 87.3% of games, misses completely in 12.7%, and leaves about 132 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,453 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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___E H in the 1st position and E in the 5th position H__S_ H in the 1st position and S in the 4th position _O__E O in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position HO_SE H in the 1st position, O in the 2nd position, S in the 4th position, and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe HOUSE 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.

5.10 Entropy (bits)
132 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
94.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HOUSE 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#6,453 Rank among openers
Opening with HOUSE 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 3.69 average. It ranks #6,453 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
67
3 guesses
880
4 guesses
1,138
5 guesses
239
6 guesses
28

Composition

5/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
EOSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
39%
All gray
13%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L U M P
H O U S E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches HOUSE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

HOUSE can come back 108 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

334 answers
302 answers
154 answers
149 answers
107 answers
104 answers
97 answers
73 answers
70 answers
48 answers
45 answers
44 answers
42 answers
41 answers
41 answers
41 answers
39 answers
35 answers
32 answers
32 answers
30 answers
26 answers
24 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1U1S1E1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

ALTER TRAIL ADORN RAILE SLANT CLARY

Strategy after playing HOUSE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HOUSE:

14% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
13% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
6% chance
Suggested:
ADORN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.0% →
ALTER 5.39 bits
12.7% →
TRAIL 5.66 bits
6.5% →
ADORN 5.15 bits
6.2% →
RAILE 4.44 bits
4.5% →
SLANT 5.13 bits
4.4% →
CLARY 4.46 bits
4.1% →
LURID 4.34 bits
3.1% →
CHART 4.89 bits
2.9% →
STEER 4.67 bits
2.0% →
PLANE 3.75 bits

Research on HOUSE

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

Optimal play

Opening with HOUSE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,593 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 HOUSE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HOUSE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 513 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 93 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).