Something (usually money) given in exchange for influence or as an inducement to breaking the law.
The act of offering or paying such a payment: an act of bribery.
That which seduces; seduction; allurement.
To give a bribe to; specifically, to ask a person to do something against their original will, in exchange for some type of reward or relief from potential trouble.
BRIBE is a 5-letter word with 2 vowels (I, E) and 3 consonants (B, R, B). It repeats 1 letter, which is a classic trap — guessers who assume five distinct letters get stuck.
It leans on high-frequency letters (R, I, 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.
Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, E appears in 50% of answers (the 1st most common letter), R appears in 37% of answers (the 3rd most common letter), I appears in 29% of answers (the 6th most common letter). 29 other answers share the opening “BR-”, so two purple tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.
Difficulty: 3/5 — moderate, because the repeated letter hides one position.
One letter away in the answer bank: BRIDE, TRIBE, BRINE. Each of these turns four tiles purple against BRIBE — the classic endgame squeeze where spending a guess on the differing letter beats burning attempts on hope.
Words like BRIBE 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 every mode.
Definitions adapted from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA). Letter statistics, difficulty ratings, and near-miss analysis are original Wordocious research computed from our curated answer list.
