else
/ɛls/
Binary Representation
11-bit index: 01001000001 (decimal 577)
Position
#578 of 2048
Hex Index
0x241
4-Letter Prefix
else
About "else" in BIP39
"else" is the #578 word
in the official BIP39 English mnemonic wordlist. It is encoded as the 11-bit binary value
01001000001
(decimal index 577), placing it at the 28% mark of the full 2048-word list.
The 4-letter prefix "else" uniquely identifies this word among all 2048 entries. At just 4 characters, "else" is one of the shorter words in the BIP39 list, making it quicker to type during wallet recovery but potentially easier to confuse with similar short entries.
Located in the middle section of the wordlist (index 577), "else" belongs to the "E" letter group, which contains 100 words. It is the #27 entry in that group. Mid-range words have a balanced mix of 0s and 1s in their binary representation.
In a 12-word seed phrase, each word encodes 11 bits of entropy. The probability of "else" appearing in any specific position of a randomly generated phrase is 1 in 2048 (≈ 0.049%). A complete 24-word phrase encodes 256 bits of entropy, providing security equivalent to a key space of approximately 1.16 × 10⁷⁷ — far beyond the reach of brute-force attacks.
Word #578 in the Other 9 BIP39 Wordlists
Every official BIP39 wordlist has exactly 2048 entries, so index 577 encodes the same 11-bit value
(01001000001) in every language.
A wallet configured for one of these languages would use this word instead of "else":