Word of the Day

Word of the Day · Sunday, September 20, 2026

BELOW

preposition

Meaning

  1. preposition

    Lower in spatial position than.

  2. preposition

    Lower than in value, price, rank, concentration, etc.

  3. preposition

    Downstream of.

  4. adverb

    In or to a lower place.

“The treasure is buried two meters below the surface.”

BELOW as a puzzle answer

BELOW is a 5-letter word with 2 vowels (E, O) and 3 consonants (B, L, W). Every letter is distinct, so it rarely punishes a clean opening guess.

It leans on high-frequency letters (E, O), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. Watch for the less-common letter W — saving a guess to test it once the vowels are placed is usually the fastest route.

BELOW 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), L appears in 26% of answers (the 8th most common letter). 15 other answers share the opening “BE-”, so two purple tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.

Difficulty: 2/5 — approachable, because it uses at least one genuinely rare letter.

Near misses

Same letters, different order: BOWEL, ELBOW — amber-heavy boards can be hiding one of these anagrams instead.

Put it to use

Words like BELOW 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.