POOCH
POOCH is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.
As an opener, it rules out about 81.6% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /puːt͡ʃ/
- Noun
-
A dog.
“She’s just been playing with the pooch ever since they got in the field.”
- Noun
-
A dog of mixed breed; a mongrel.
- Verb
-
To distend, to swell or extend beyond normal limits; usually used with out.
“Inflate that tire too much and the tube may pooch out of the cut in the sidewall.”
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
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
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 POOCH performs as a guess
POOCH 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 59.5% of games, misses completely in 40.5%, and leaves about 438 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,596 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 POOCH 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 POOCH 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 POOCH in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
POOCH can come back 74 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 POOCH; 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 POOCH
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to POOCH.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing POOCH:
Research on POOCH
Game-tree analysis and word research for POOCH, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with POOCH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,694 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.94 guesses at best and is rank #5,019 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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, POOCH is a kind of dog or purse.
Synonyms barker DOGGY doggie
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- POOCH sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 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 (3.8 of 5).
In a sentence
He named his puppy Pooch.
Cookie is a playful pooch.
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).