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

MARSE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 96.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /mɑː(ɹ)s/

Noun

Alternative form of master, often used as a general title of respect.

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 MARSE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MARSE 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 88.3% of games, misses completely in 11.7%, and leaves about 90 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,122 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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 MARSE 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.

5.55 Entropy (bits)
90 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
96.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 99% of evaluated openers
0.39 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MARSE 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#1,122 Rank among openers
Opening with MARSE left 4 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 3.60 average. It ranks #1,122 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
87
3 guesses
966
4 guesses
1,109
5 guesses
171
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:
AERS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
40%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

MARSE can come back 126 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

277 answers
153 answers
139 answers
121 answers
118 answers
114 answers
99 answers
91 answers
83 answers
62 answers
46 answers
45 answers
45 answers
41 answers
41 answers
38 answers
34 answers
33 answers
28 answers
26 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3A1R1S1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing MARSE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MARSE:

12% chance
Suggested:
COUNT
6% chance
Suggested:
INLET
6% chance
Suggested:
OLDER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.7%
COUNT 5.66 bits
6.4%
INLET 5.06 bits
5.9%
OLDER 3.91 bits
5.1%
TONAL 5.06 bits
5.0%
STINK 4.83 bits
4.8%
DROIT 4.91 bits
4.2%
GUILE 4.70 bits
3.8%
TANGY 3.88 bits
3.5%
TRAIN 4.26 bits
2.6%
PETAL 4.63 bits

Research on MARSE

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

Optimal play

Opening with MARSE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.60 guesses and ranks #141 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 MARSE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.60, 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

One syllable Say it MAHRS.

Rhymes with FARCE PARSE CARSE

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MARSE 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).