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

MAKOS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of mako

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 MAKOS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MAKOS 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 78.6% of games, misses completely in 21.4%, and leaves about 213 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,279 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 MAKOS 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.

4.34 Entropy (bits)
213 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 41% of evaluated openers
1.61 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MAKOS 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#8,279 Rank among openers
Opening with MAKOS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,279 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
813
4 guesses
1,251
5 guesses
226
6 guesses
17
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
22%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

MAKOS can come back 77 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

508 answers
264 answers
262 answers
191 answers
167 answers
110 answers
92 answers
65 answers
60 answers
52 answers
52 answers
49 answers
39 answers
35 answers
32 answers
25 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3A1K5O1S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing MAKOS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MAKOS:

21% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
11% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
11% chance
Suggested:
ALERT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.4%
TRINE 6.06 bits
11.1%
TRONE 5.21 bits
11.0%
ALERT 5.59 bits
8.0%
STIRE 5.42 bits
7.0%
TRINE 4.78 bits
4.6%
STALE 4.89 bits
3.9%
RONTE 4.72 bits
2.7%
TONAL 4.32 bits
2.5%
PLIER 4.84 bits
2.2%
CRINE 4.85 bits

Research on MAKOS

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

Optimal play

Opening with MAKOS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,478 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.86 guesses at best and is rank #3,292 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.76, because the two figures score different answer lists.

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

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, MAKOS is a kind of shark.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MAKOS sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).