5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess C tier for first-turn info

MASSE

Yes, MASSE was the Wordle answer on December 12, 2021 (Wordle #176).

As an opener, it rules out about 92.5% of possible answers.

Open Solver with MASSE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Obsolete form of mass.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: December 12, 2021 (#176).

See the full page for that puzzle: December 12, 2021 (#176).

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

Wordle Observatory · optional

Played this Wordle?

Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How MASSE performs as a guess

MASSE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 82.1% of games, misses completely in 17.9%, and leaves about 178 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,662 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.78 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

M___E M in the 1st position and E in the 5th position M__S_ M in the 1st position and S in the 4th position _A__E A in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in MASSE.

First-turn measures

All four describe MASSE 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.

4.60 Entropy (bits)
178 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 59% of evaluated openers
1.35 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MASSE 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.

3.78 Avg guesses
99.75% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#10,662 Rank among openers
Opening with MASSE left 6 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.78 average. It ranks #10,662 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
51
3 guesses
745
4 guesses
1,258
5 guesses
263
6 guesses
30
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:
AES

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
38%
All gray
18%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S M I L Y
M A S S E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches MASSE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

MASSE can come back 83 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

425 answers
310 answers
216 answers
160 answers
133 answers
132 answers
105 answers
68 answers
62 answers
54 answers
53 answers
45 answers
43 answers
32 answers
32 answers
30 answers
30 answers
28 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3A1S1S1E1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

COUNT DETER TRAIL NOIRE SNOUT RONTE

Strategy after playing MASSE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MASSE:

18% chance
Suggested:
COUNT
13% chance
Suggested:
DETER
9% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.9% →
COUNT 5.74 bits
13.1% →
DETER 5.36 bits
9.1% →
TRAIL 5.31 bits
6.7% →
NOIRE 4.28 bits
5.6% →
SNOUT 4.68 bits
5.6% →
RONTE 4.03 bits
4.4% →
RENAL 4.75 bits
2.9% →
CLARY 3.63 bits
2.6% →
SLANT 4.31 bits
2.3% →
STEER 4.13 bits

Research on MASSE

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

Optimal play

Opening with MASSE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,381 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 MASSE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.78, 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

One syllable Say it MAS.

Rhymes with CLASS GLASS GRASS BRASS CRASS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, MASSE is a kind of shot.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MASSE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.

In a sentence

All were carried away en masse by Marxism.
© tatoeba.org contributor AlanF_US (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Staff couldn't handle the new Minister's authoritarian management style, and left en masse.
© tatoeba.org contributor patgfisher (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).