GOOSE

Meaning

Any of various grazing waterfowl of the family Anatidae, which have feathers and webbed feet and are capable of flying, swimming, and walking on land, and which are bigger than ducks.

“There is a flock of geese on the pond.”

• verbTo sharply poke or pinch someone's buttocks. Derived from a goose's inclination to bite at a retreating intruder's hindquarters.

GOOSE as a word-puzzle answer

GOOSE is a 5-letter word with 3 vowels (O, O, E) and 2 consonants (G, S). It repeats 1 letter, which is a classic trap — guessers who assume five distinct letters get stuck.

It leans on high-frequency letters (O, S, E), 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.

GOOSE by the numbers

Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, E appears in 50% of answers (the 1st most common letter), O appears in 30% of answers (the 5th most common letter), S appears in 28% of answers (the 7th most common letter). 4 other answers share the opening “GO-”, so two green tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.

Difficulty: 3/5 — moderate, because the repeated letter hides one position.

Near misses

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

Put it to use

Words like GOOSE 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.