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

MAGES

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈmeɪ.d͡ʒɪz/

Noun

plural of mage

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

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it MAYJIHZ.

Rhymes with CAGES RAGES SAGES

Use MAGES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.1% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How MAGES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MAGES 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 85.7% of games, misses completely in 14.3%, and leaves about 141 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,427 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 MAGES 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.

4.85 Entropy (bits)
141 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.1% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MAGES 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#6,427 Rank among openers
Opening with MAGES left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,427 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
65
3 guesses
837
4 guesses
1,223
5 guesses
212
6 guesses
16

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AES

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
31%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

MAGES can come back 95 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

341 answers
234 answers
187 answers
168 answers
167 answers
137 answers
120 answers
101 answers
80 answers
65 answers
52 answers
49 answers
48 answers
47 answers
37 answers
36 answers
29 answers
26 answers
26 answers
26 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3A1G2E1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing MAGES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MAGES:

14% chance
Suggested:
COURT
10% chance
Suggested:
TRICE
8% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.3% →
COURT 5.79 bits
9.8% →
TRICE 5.36 bits
7.8% →
TRAIL 5.34 bits
7.0% →
OLDER 4.24 bits
7.0% →
SHOUT 4.95 bits
5.7% →
DEALT 4.82 bits
5.0% →
RAINY 4.04 bits
4.2% →
PORTE 4.65 bits
3.4% →
SHALT 4.61 bits
2.7% →
GUILT 4.65 bits

Research on MAGES

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

Optimal play

Opening with MAGES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #3,826 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 MAGES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69; proven optimal play reaches 3.69. 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MAGES sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).