BUDDY

Meaning

A friend or casual acquaintance.

“They have been buddies since they were in school.”

• nounA partner for a particular activity.
• nounA workmate assigned to work closely with another.
• pronounA person far removed from the conversation.

BUDDY as a word-puzzle answer

BUDDY is a 5-letter word with 1 vowel (U) and 4 consonants (B, D, D, Y). It repeats 1 letter, which is a classic trap — guessers who assume five distinct letters get stuck.

There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.

BUDDY by the numbers

Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, D appears in 19% of answers (the 11th most common letter), U appears in 18% of answers (the 12th most common letter), Y appears in 14% of answers (the 14th most common letter). 14 other answers share the opening “BU-”, so two green tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.

Difficulty: 4/5 — tricky, because the repeated letter hides one position.

Near misses

One letter away in the answer bank: RUDDY, MUDDY. Each of these turns four tiles green against BUDDY — the classic endgame squeeze where spending a guess on the differing letter beats burning attempts on hope.

Put it to use

Words like BUDDY are exactly what the daily puzzles throw at you. Warm up in Practice, race the clock in the Daily Challenge, or study the best starting words before your next run. New to the multi-board modes? The mode guides cover all nine.