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

MANTA

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈmæn.tə/

Noun

A kind of fabric or blanket used in Latin America and southwestern United States.

Noun

A manta ray (Mobula spp.).

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 MANTA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MANTA 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 73.8% of games, misses completely in 26.2%, and leaves about 251 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,289 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 MANTA 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.

4.25 Entropy (bits)
251 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 36% of evaluated openers
1.70 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MANTA 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
99.87% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#8,289 Rank among openers
Opening with MANTA left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,289 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
58
3 guesses
800
4 guesses
1,242
5 guesses
230
6 guesses
21
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
2 vowels
Common:
ANT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
27%
All gray
26%

Feedback distribution

MANTA can come back 87 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

621 answers
245 answers
234 answers
190 answers
119 answers
107 answers
82 answers
76 answers
71 answers
68 answers
59 answers
41 answers
39 answers
36 answers
25 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3A1N1T1A1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing MANTA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MANTA:

26% chance
Suggested:
SOLER
10% chance
Suggested:
SCARE
10% chance
Suggested:
SHIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.2%
SOLER 5.98 bits
10.3%
SCARE 5.36 bits
9.9%
SHIER 5.58 bits
8.0%
GOIER 5.25 bits
5.0%
SLYER 4.91 bits
4.5%
SERAL 5.07 bits
3.5%
POIRE 5.03 bits
3.2%
GRISE 4.61 bits
3.0%
GRICE 4.32 bits
2.9%
SHORE 4.74 bits

Research on MANTA

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

Optimal play

Opening with MANTA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,115 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.87 guesses at best and is rank #3,536 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 3.77, 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 MANTUH.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, MANTA is a kind of cover or ray.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MANTA 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.

In a sentence

Manta rays are not very common in these waters.
© tatoeba.org contributor abburns (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Tom swam with the manta rays.
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).