LEECH
Yes, LEECH was the Wordle answer on August 23, 2024 (Wordle #1161).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈliːt͡ʃ/[ˈlɪi̯t͡ʃ]
- Noun
-
A typically aquatic blood-sucking annelid of the subclass Hirudinea, especially Hirudo medicinalis.
- Noun
-
A person who derives advantage from others in a parasitic fashion.
- Verb
-
To apply a leech medicinally, so that it sucks blood from the patient.
- Verb
-
To drain (resources) without giving back.
“Bert leeched hundreds of files from the BBS, but never uploaded anything in return.”
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English lek, leche, lyche, from Old Norse lík (“leechline”), from Proto-West Germanic *līk, from Proto-Germanic *līką (compare West Frisian lyk (“band”), Dutch lijk (“boltrope”), Middle High German geleich (“joint, limb”)), from Proto-Indo-European *leyǵ- ‘to bind’ (compare Latin ligō (“tie, bind”), Ukrainian нали́гати (nalýhaty, “to bridle, fetter”), Albanian lidh (“to bind”), Hittite link- (caus. linganu-) ‘to swear’ (with -n- infix).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it LEECH.
Rhymes with REACH BEACH TEACH PEACH BEECH
Related meanings
Synonyms BLEED sponge parasite
In a sentence
Tom is just a leech.
Tom is nothing but a leech.
Use LEECH in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 90.0% of possible answers.
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: August 23, 2024 (#1161).
See the full page for that puzzle: August 23, 2024 (#1161).
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
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 dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →LEECH in Connections
2 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
-
· Puzzle #999
Reveal this appearance's category
LEECH appeared in FREELOADER (yellow group).
-
· Puzzle #163
Reveal this appearance's category
LEECH appeared in THINGS THAT SUCK (purple group).
How LEECH performs as a guess
LEECH 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 76.0% of games, misses completely in 24.0%, and leaves about 239 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,088 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe LEECH 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 LEECH 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 LEECH in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
LEECH can come back 88 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 LEECH; 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 LEECH
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to LEECH.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing LEECH:
Research on LEECH
Game-tree analysis and word research for LEECH, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with LEECH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,885 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.90 guesses at best and is rank #4,060 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 3.76, 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
- LEECH sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.9 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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).