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

MEREL

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

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

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

Check MEREL on Wiktionary or report a missing entry.

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 MEREL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MEREL 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 80.7% of games, misses completely in 19.3%, and leaves about 173 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,158 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 MEREL 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.

4.76 Entropy (bits)
173 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 69% of evaluated openers
1.18 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MEREL 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#5,158 Rank among openers
Opening with MEREL left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.67 average. It ranks #5,158 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
907
4 guesses
1,144
5 guesses
225
6 guesses
16
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ELR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
35%
All gray
19%

Feedback distribution

MEREL can come back 97 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

458 answers
240 answers
217 answers
191 answers
115 answers
99 answers
95 answers
68 answers
60 answers
59 answers
55 answers
49 answers
46 answers
31 answers
29 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3E1R1E1L1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing MEREL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MEREL:

19% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
10% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
9% chance
Suggested:
COAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.3%
SAINT 6.18 bits
10.1%
TRAIN 5.35 bits
9.1%
COAST 5.13 bits
8.0%
SAINT 5.55 bits
4.8%
COAST 4.80 bits
4.2%
STALE 4.57 bits
4.0%
SAINT 3.73 bits
2.9%
COAST 4.88 bits
2.5%
SAINT 4.62 bits
2.5%
SOAPY 4.62 bits

Research on MEREL

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

Optimal play

Opening with MEREL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,868 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,925 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it MEHRUHL. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MEREL 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); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).