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

MENCE

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

No dictionary definition for MENCE is recorded in our sourced data.

Meaning and pronunciation

We do not have a sourced definition for this word yet.

Check MENCE on Wiktionary or report a missing entry.

Use MENCE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.3% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No 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.

How MENCE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MENCE 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 74.6% of games, misses completely in 25.4%, and leaves about 232 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,930 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe MENCE 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.

4.45 Entropy (bits)
232 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MENCE 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#6,930 Rank among openers
Opening with MENCE left 3 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 3.70 average. It ranks #6,930 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
55
3 guesses
845
4 guesses
1,216
5 guesses
218
6 guesses
17

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
38%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

MENCE can come back 90 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

606 answers
212 answers
209 answers
205 answers
116 answers
90 answers
90 answers
71 answers
63 answers
50 answers
41 answers
41 answers
38 answers
36 answers
31 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers
16 answers
16 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3E1N1C3E1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing MENCE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MENCE:

25% chance
Suggested:
ROAST
9% chance
Suggested:
SOLAR
9% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.4% →
ROAST 6.08 bits
8.9% →
SOLAR 5.11 bits
8.8% →
SLART 5.25 bits
8.6% →
ROAST 5.24 bits
4.9% →
CORAL 5.35 bits
3.8% →
SLART 4.98 bits
3.8% →
PRIMO 4.72 bits
3.0% →
SHART 4.28 bits
2.6% →
ALIEN 4.29 bits
2.1% →
LAIRY 4.01 bits

Research on MENCE

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

Optimal play

Opening with MENCE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,453 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.87 guesses at best and is rank #3,495 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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
MENCE 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).