MELEE
MELEE is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈmɛˌleɪ//ˈmɛ.li//ˈmeɪˌleɪ/
- Noun
-
A battle fought at close range, (especially) one not involving ranged weapons; hand-to-hand combat; brawling.
- Noun
-
A loud, confused or tumultuous fight, argument or scrap.
- Verb
-
To physically hit in close quarters, as opposed to shooting, blowing up, or other ranged means of damage. Often refers to the usage of a hand-to-hand weapon.
- Adjective
-
Of a weapon: used in close-range combat, e.g. a sword. Compare with ranged.
Alternative forms: mêlée, melée
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
Borrowed from French mêlée, from Old French meslee, feminine past participle of mesler (“to mix”), derived from Latin misceō (“mix”). Doublet of medley.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it MAYLAY.
Rhymes with PALAY
Related meanings
Synonyms scrimmage
In a sentence
Swords and clubs are melee weapons.
If your enemy gets close to you, tap the melee button.
Use MELEE in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 86.0% 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
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
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 →How MELEE performs as a guess
MELEE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 67.7% of games, misses completely in 32.3%, and leaves about 334 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,780 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.83 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 MELEE 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 MELEE 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
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches MELEE in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
MELEE can come back 62 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 MELEE; 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 MELEE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to MELEE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing MELEE:
Research on MELEE
Game-tree analysis and word research for MELEE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with MELEE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.85 guesses and ranks #12,696 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 MELEE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.83, at or below the proven-optimal 3.85, 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
- MELEE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.3 of 5).
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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).