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

MAXES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with MAXES Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of max

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 MAXES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MAXES 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 82.3% of games, misses completely in 17.7%, and leaves about 186 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,162 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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___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

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

First-turn measures

All four describe MAXES 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.

4.36 Entropy (bits)
186 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 42% of evaluated openers
1.59 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MAXES 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.

3.82 Avg guesses
99.79% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#12,162 Rank among openers
Opening with MAXES left 5 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.82 average. It ranks #12,162 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
682
4 guesses
1,313
5 guesses
284
6 guesses
26
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:
AES

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
29%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

MAXES can come back 67 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

420 answers
280 answers
212 answers
180 answers
174 answers
157 answers
132 answers
108 answers
85 answers
54 answers
52 answers
48 answers
43 answers
38 answers
32 answers
31 answers
27 answers
27 answers
23 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3A1X8E1S1
Total: 14 points

Words With Friends

Total: 15 points

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

Try next

COUNT TRINE TRAIL SNOUT OLDER DEALT

Strategy after playing MAXES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MAXES:

18% chance
Suggested:
COUNT
12% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
9% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.7% →
COUNT 5.74 bits
11.8% →
TRINE 5.26 bits
8.9% →
TRAIL 5.30 bits
7.6% →
SNOUT 4.97 bits
7.3% →
OLDER 4.18 bits
6.6% →
DEALT 4.77 bits
5.6% →
RONTE 4.03 bits
4.5% →
SNORE 4.45 bits
3.6% →
SHALT 4.62 bits
2.3% →
SLART 4.10 bits

Research on MAXES

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

Optimal play

Opening with MAXES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,139 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 MAXES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.82; proven optimal play reaches 3.79. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 MAKSUHZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

Synonyms soap SCOOP

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MAXES 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.4 of 5).

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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).