Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier for first-turn info

MAARE

MAARE is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.

As an opener, it rules out about 93.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of maar

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Wordle status

A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.

Playable guess

Yes

Included in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.

Possible answer

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How MAARE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MAARE as a guess, but the solver does not list it as a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 82.2% of games, misses completely in 17.8%, and leaves about 150 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,201 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 guesses in games solved within six turns.

Try your feedback pattern

Tap the tiles to match your feedback, then see the ranked follow-up guesses.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.

First-turn measures

All four describe MAARE used as an opening guess. Entropy is the same idea as “avg ruled out” on a log scale: a higher number means the guess splits the possible answers into more, smaller groups.

4.92 Entropy (bits)
150 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 79% of evaluated openers
1.03 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MAARE performed in the previous complete opener benchmark, against its captured answer snapshot. These research figures are separate from today's solver recommendations. See the data page for the method.

3.74 Avg guesses
99.79% Solved within six
0.75 Spread of game lengths
#9,201 Rank among openers
Opening with MAARE left 5 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.75 means those games clustered within about 0.75 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #9,201 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
801
4 guesses
1,183
5 guesses
266
6 guesses
33
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

4/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
AER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
45%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

MAARE can come back 99 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

423 answers
209 answers
174 answers
158 answers
153 answers
108 answers
87 answers
82 answers
71 answers
54 answers
48 answers
48 answers
45 answers
42 answers
40 answers
38 answers
33 answers
33 answers
30 answers
29 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

Base letter-value totals for MAARE; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.

Scrabble

M3A1A1R1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.

Strategy after playing MAARE

What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to MAARE.

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MAARE:

18% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
9% chance
Suggested:
INLET
7% chance
Suggested:
TRIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

Ranked follow-up guesses for the 10 most common feedback patterns.

17.8%
SOILY 5.67 bits
8.8%
INLET 5.05 bits
7.3%
TRIER 4.13 bits
6.7%
DROIT 4.82 bits
6.4%
SOILY 4.67 bits
4.5%
SONLY 4.34 bits
3.7%
TONAL 5.21 bits
3.5%
SLANT 4.74 bits
3.0%
POISE 3.80 bits
2.3%
CLEAT 4.50 bits

Research on MAARE

Game-tree analysis and word research for MAARE, with an explanation for each figure.

Optimal play

Opening with MAARE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #7,010 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with MAARE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74; proven optimal play reaches 3.73. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

These figures come from exhaustive game-tree search and are exact for the NYT lists of July 2023 (3,158 answers). They do not use the site's working answer pool.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it MAHR. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, MAARE is a kind of crater.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).