HOVEL
Yes, HOVEL was the Wordle answer on November 26, 2025 (Wordle #1621).
As an opener, it rules out about 92.6% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈhɒvəl//ˈhʌvəl//ˈhɑvəl/
- Noun
-
An open shed for sheltering cattle, or protecting produce, etc., from the weather.
- Noun
-
A poor cottage; a small, mean house; a hut.
- Verb
-
To put in a hovel; to shelter.
- Verb
-
To construct a chimney so as to prevent smoking, by making two of the more exposed walls higher than the others, or making an opening on one side near the top.
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: November 26, 2025 (#1621).
See the full page for that puzzle: November 26, 2025 (#1621).
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 HOVEL performs as a guess
HOVEL 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 83.0% of games, misses completely in 17.0%, and leaves about 175 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,618 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 HOVEL 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 HOVEL 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 HOVEL in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
HOVEL can come back 97 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 HOVEL; 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 HOVEL
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to HOVEL.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing HOVEL:
Research on HOVEL
Game-tree analysis and word research for HOVEL, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with HOVEL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,803 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.87 guesses at best and is rank #3,556 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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 HUHVUHL.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- HOVEL 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.
In a sentence
Is this the hovel you live in?
Tom lives in a hovel.
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).