POACH
POACH is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
As an opener, it rules out about 91.9% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈpoʊt͡ʃ/
- Verb
-
To cook (something) in simmering or very hot liquid (usually water; sometimes wine, broth, or otherwise).
- Verb
-
To be cooked in such manner.
- Noun
-
The act of cooking in simmering liquid.
- Noun
-
The act of taking something unfairly, as in tennis doubles where one player returns a shot that their partner was better placed to return.
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
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
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 POACH performs as a guess
Wordle accepts POACH 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 78.9% of games, misses completely in 21.1%, and leaves about 192 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,904 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 POACH 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 POACH 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
Feedback distribution
POACH can come back 103 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 POACH; 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 POACH
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to POACH.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing POACH:
Research on POACH
Game-tree analysis and word research for POACH, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with POACH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,026 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,643 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, POACH is a kind of run or cook.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- POACH 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.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 10, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 57 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.4 of 5).
In a sentence
Why go through all that trouble to poach a gazelle?
Tom wanted poached eggs, so he first had to poach a chicken.
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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).