MATES
MATES is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
As an opener, it rules out about 95.5% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /meɪts/
- Noun
-
plural of mate
- Verb
-
third-person singular simple present indicative of mate
- Adjective
-
Friendly; having a friendship (with).
“He is mates with my brother.”
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How MATES performs as a guess
Wordle accepts MATES 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 87.8% of games, misses completely in 12.2%, and leaves about 107 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,985 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe MATES 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How MATES 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Feedback distribution
MATES can come back 108 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for MATES; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing MATES
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to MATES.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing MATES:
Research on MATES
Game-tree analysis and word research for MATES, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with MATES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,122 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 MATES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- MATES sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 10 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 7, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 78 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.3 of 5).
In a sentence
He and I are mates.
I hope they're still mates.
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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).