WHOSE
Yes, WHOSE was the Wordle answer on May 2, 2025 (Wordle #1413).
As an opener, it rules out about 92.5% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /huːz/
- Determiner
-
Of whom, belonging to whom; which person's or people's.
“Whose (wallet) is this?”
- Determiner
-
Of whom, belonging to whom.
“This is the man whose dog caused the accident.”
- Pronoun
-
That or those of whom or belonging to whom.
“Several people have lost their suitcases. Whose have you found?”
- Contraction
-
Misspelling of who's.
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
Used oncePast Wordle answer: May 2, 2025 (#1413).
See the full page for that puzzle: May 2, 2025 (#1413).
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 WHOSE performs as a guess
WHOSE 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 82.9% of games, misses completely in 17.1%, and leaves about 178 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,410 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 WHOSE 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 WHOSE 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 WHOSE in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
WHOSE can come back 109 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 WHOSE; 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 WHOSE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to WHOSE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing WHOSE:
Research on WHOSE
Game-tree analysis and word research for WHOSE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with WHOSE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,696 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with WHOSE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, 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
- WHOSE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 117 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.1 of 5).
In a sentence
Whose go is it first?
Do you know whose it is?
Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).