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

MANUL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A small wild cat of Central Asia, Otocolobus manul.

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 MANUL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MANUL 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 80.2% of games, misses completely in 19.8%, and leaves about 170 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,168 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 MANUL 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.

4.77 Entropy (bits)
170 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 70% of evaluated openers
1.18 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MANUL 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#2,168 Rank among openers
Opening with MANUL left 3 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 3.62 average. It ranks #2,168 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
65
3 guesses
955
4 guesses
1,148
5 guesses
168
6 guesses
15
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:
ALNU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
29%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

MANUL can come back 103 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

469 answers
244 answers
156 answers
154 answers
138 answers
124 answers
103 answers
69 answers
56 answers
56 answers
54 answers
52 answers
47 answers
44 answers
40 answers
38 answers
37 answers
30 answers
29 answers
27 answers
24 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3A1N1U1L1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing MANUL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MANUL:

20% chance
Suggested:
TORSE
10% chance
Suggested:
TRACE
7% chance
Suggested:
TOILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.8%
TORSE 6.20 bits
10.3%
TRACE 5.77 bits
6.6%
TOILE 5.05 bits
6.5%
TRINE 5.36 bits
5.8%
TORSE 5.44 bits
5.2%
PORTE 4.85 bits
4.3%
SLATE 4.69 bits
2.9%
GRICE 4.64 bits
2.4%
SLICE 4.09 bits
2.4%
CORSE 4.34 bits

Research on MANUL

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

Optimal play

Opening with MANUL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,348 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 MANUL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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 MANUHL. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, MANUL is a kind of wildcat.

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).