BRUSH

Meaning

An implement consisting of multiple more or less flexible bristles or other filaments attached to a handle, used for any of various purposes including cleaning, painting, and arranging hair.

• verbTo clean with a brush.

BRUSH as a word-puzzle answer

BRUSH is a 5-letter word with 1 vowel (U) and 4 consonants (B, R, S, H). Every letter is distinct, so it rarely punishes a clean opening guess.

It leans on high-frequency letters (R, S), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.

BRUSH by the numbers

Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, R appears in 37% of answers (the 3rd most common letter), S appears in 28% of answers (the 7th most common letter), U appears in 18% of answers (the 12th most common letter). 29 other answers share the opening “BR-”, so two green tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.

Difficulty: 2/5 — approachable, because its letters are common and no close neighbors compete with it.

Near misses

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

Same letters, different order: SHRUB — yellow-heavy boards can be hiding this anagram instead.

Put it to use

Words like BRUSH 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.