MEANS
MEANS is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /miːnz//minz/
- Noun
-
plural of mean
- Noun
-
An instrument or condition to achieve a result.
“She treated him as a means to an end.”
- Verb
-
third-person singular simple present indicative of mean
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
Various origins: * Reduced form of McMeans, a surname of Irish origin. * Habitational surname from the villages of East and West Meon, in Hampshire. * A nickname from Middle English mene (“inferior in rank”), which is from Old English ġemǣne (“common, general”), or Middle English mene (“moderate in behaviour”), which is from Old French mëen, mean.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it MEENZ.
Rhymes with TEENS BEANS GENES JEANS LEANS
Related meanings
Synonyms way agency substance instrumentation
In a sentence
Is that what she means?
Do it by all means.
Use MEANS in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 95.1% of possible answers.
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
No completed appearanceNo appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.
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 →MEANS in Connections
1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #268
Reveal this appearance's category
MEANS appeared in METHOD (green group).
How MEANS performs as a guess
Wordle accepts MEANS 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 88.0% of games, misses completely in 12.0%, and leaves about 116 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,337 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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 MEANS 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 MEANS 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
MEANS can come back 101 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 MEANS; 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 MEANS
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to MEANS.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing MEANS:
Research on MEANS
Game-tree analysis and word research for MEANS, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with MEANS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,092 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 MEANS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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
- MEANS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 275 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS.