5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier opener

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.

Open Solver with MATES Open Word Finder

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

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 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 106 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete v5 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.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.

Useful pattern pages

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

M___S M in the 1st position and S in the 5th position M__E_ M in the 1st position and E in the 4th position _A__S A in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position MA_ES M in the 1st position, A in the 2nd position, E in the 4th position, and S in the 5th position

Try next

CRONY NOIRE GRAIL OLDER BLARE TROUT
Words starting with M Words ending with S

First-turn measures

5.23 Entropy (bits)
106 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 93% of evaluated openers
0.72 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opener: v5 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.9% Win rate
0.69 Volatility
#2,985 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, MATES ranks #2,985 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
80
3 guesses
886
4 guesses
1,207
5 guesses
166
6 guesses
13
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.45 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AEST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
31%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

107 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

288
205
153
140
115
109
108
81
79
72
66
52
51
45
43
36
34
33
31
31
29
27
27
25
25
24
23
22
22
18

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MATES:

12% chance
Suggested:
CRONY
9% chance
Suggested:
NOIRE
6% chance
Suggested:
GRAIL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.2% →
CRONY 5.69 bits
8.7% →
NOIRE 5.14 bits
6.5% →
GRAIL 5.00 bits
5.9% →
OLDER 4.20 bits
4.9% →
BLARE 4.72 bits
4.6% →
TROUT 5.06 bits
4.6% →
SHINY 4.68 bits
3.4% →
RANDY 4.15 bits
3.4% →
PRONE 4.58 bits
3.1% →
STOUT 4.31 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3A1T1E1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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