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

HOVER

Yes, HOVER was the Wordle answer on March 1, 2025 (Wordle #1351).

As an opener, it rules out about 92.7% of possible answers.

Open Solver with HOVER Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈhɒvə//ˈhʌvə//ˈhʌvɚ/

Verb

To keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air.

Verb

Of a bird: to shelter (chicks) under its body and wings; (by extension) of a thing: to cover or surround (something).

Noun

An act, or the state, of remaining stationary in the air or some other place.

Noun

A flock of birds fluttering in the air in one place.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: March 1, 2025 (#1351).

See the full page for that puzzle: March 1, 2025 (#1351).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How HOVER performs as a guess

HOVER 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 82.4% of games, misses completely in 17.6%, and leaves about 172 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,920 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.72 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___R H in the 1st position and R in the 5th position H__E_ H in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _O__R O in the 2nd position and R in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe HOVER 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.

4.67 Entropy (bits)
172 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 63% of evaluated openers
1.27 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HOVER 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.

3.72 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#7,920 Rank among openers
Opening with HOVER solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.72 average. It ranks #7,920 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
65
3 guesses
822
4 guesses
1,193
5 guesses
252
6 guesses
21
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
2 vowels
Common:
EOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
29%
All gray
18%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S M O C K
F L O W N
B O X E R
H O V E R

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches HOVER in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.

Feedback distribution

HOVER can come back 99 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

418 answers
315 answers
180 answers
154 answers
130 answers
111 answers
109 answers
94 answers
83 answers
78 answers
60 answers
52 answers
36 answers
34 answers
34 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1V4E1R1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Try next

SNAIL SLANT SAINT IRATE SADLY ARSON

Strategy after playing HOVER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HOVER:

18% chance
Suggested:
SNAIL
13% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
8% chance
Suggested:
SAINT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.6% →
SNAIL 5.92 bits
13.3% →
SLANT 5.70 bits
7.6% →
SAINT 5.26 bits
6.5% →
IRATE 4.54 bits
5.5% →
SLANT 5.13 bits
4.7% →
SADLY 4.49 bits
4.6% →
SAINT 4.89 bits
4.0% →
SAINT 3.80 bits
3.5% →
SLANT 4.90 bits
3.3% →
ARSON 3.87 bits

Research on HOVER

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

Optimal play

Opening with HOVER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,682 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 HOVER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.72, 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 HUHVUR.

Rhymes with COVER LOVER

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, HOVER is a kind of hesitate or waffle.

Synonyms loom linger BROOD vibrate

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HOVER 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.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 60 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.7 of 5).

In a sentence

The helicopter is at a hover.
© tatoeba.org contributor MethodGT (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The creature just continued to hover.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).