5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer F tier opener

HOWKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 83.5% of possible answers.

Open Solver with HOWKS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of howk

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 HOWKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HOWKS 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 63.9% of games, misses completely in 36.1%, and leaves about 390 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete v5 benchmark, it ranks #11,516 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

H___S H in the 1st position and S in the 5th position H__K_ H in the 1st position and K in the 4th position _O__S O in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position HO_KS H in the 1st position, O in the 2nd position, K in the 4th position, and S in the 5th position

Try next

RAILE STARE LATER TALER TRICE SERAL
Words starting with H Words ending with S

First-turn measures

3.73 Entropy (bits)
390 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
83.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 12% of evaluated openers
2.22 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opener: v5 benchmark

How HOWKS 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
100.0% Win rate
0.69 Volatility
#11,516 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, HOWKS ranks #11,516 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
38
3 guesses
725
4 guesses
1,285
5 guesses
289
6 guesses
17
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.45 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
OS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
64%
Green tile
18%
All gray
36%

Feedback distribution

67 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

851
284
228
151
119
66
65
58
49
43
39
36
29
26
24
24
23
23
20
15
13
13
13
12
11
9
8
7
7
7

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HOWKS:

36% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
12% chance
Suggested:
STARE
10% chance
Suggested:
LATER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

36.1% →
RAILE 6.27 bits
12.0% →
STARE 5.64 bits
9.7% →
LATER 5.26 bits
6.4% →
TALER 4.52 bits
5.0% →
TRICE 5.45 bits
2.8% →
SERAL 4.58 bits
2.8% →
CARLE 4.92 bits
2.5% →
PEART 4.34 bits
2.1% →
TRADE 4.86 bits
1.8% →
URITE 3.84 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4O1W4K5S1
Total: 15 points

Words With Friends

Total: 14 points

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