5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer F tier for first-turn info

HUNKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 85.9% of possible answers.

Open Solver with HUNKS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /hʌŋks/

Noun

plural of hunk

Noun

A crotchety or surly person.

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 HUNKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HUNKS 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 67.0% of games, misses completely in 33.0%, and leaves about 335 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,853 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___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 _U__S U in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe HUNKS 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.

3.98 Entropy (bits)
335 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
85.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 22% of evaluated openers
1.96 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HUNKS 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
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#7,853 Rank among openers
Opening with HUNKS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.72 average. It ranks #7,853 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
41
3 guesses
836
4 guesses
1,239
5 guesses
222
6 guesses
16
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
1 vowels
Common:
NSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
67%
Green tile
19%
All gray
33%

Feedback distribution

HUNKS can come back 74 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

784 answers
266 answers
208 answers
135 answers
104 answers
98 answers
82 answers
67 answers
60 answers
46 answers
46 answers
43 answers
39 answers
31 answers
28 answers
27 answers
24 answers
22 answers
19 answers
17 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4U1N1K5S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Try next

ARIEL SPATE CARTE DROLE BALER CAGEY

Strategy after playing HUNKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HUNKS:

33% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
11% chance
Suggested:
SPATE
9% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

33.0% →
ARIEL 6.15 bits
11.2% →
SPATE 5.73 bits
8.8% →
ARIEL 5.63 bits
5.7% →
CARTE 5.72 bits
4.4% →
DROLE 5.28 bits
4.1% →
BALER 4.50 bits
3.5% →
CAGEY 4.74 bits
2.8% →
SLATE 4.81 bits
2.5% →
STEIN 4.73 bits
1.9% →
CARET 4.60 bits

Research on HUNKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with HUNKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,144 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.89 guesses at best and is rank #3,980 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.72, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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

One syllable Say it HUHNGKS.

Rhymes with MONKS PUNKS DUNKS BUNKS FUNKS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, HUNKS is a kind of man or part.

Synonyms lump

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HUNKS 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.5 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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).