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

MERIL

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

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

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

Check MERIL 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 MERIL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MERIL 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 88.5% of games, misses completely in 11.5%, and leaves about 110 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,805 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 MERIL 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.

5.21 Entropy (bits)
110 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 92% of evaluated openers
0.74 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MERIL 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#1,805 Rank among openers
Opening with MERIL left 2 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 3.62 average. It ranks #1,805 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
70
3 guesses
972
4 guesses
1,116
5 guesses
180
6 guesses
14
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:
EILR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
30%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

MERIL can come back 114 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

274 answers
192 answers
179 answers
167 answers
152 answers
134 answers
97 answers
73 answers
71 answers
59 answers
56 answers
50 answers
50 answers
48 answers
41 answers
41 answers
35 answers
35 answers
31 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3E1R1I1L1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing MERIL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MERIL:

12% chance
Suggested:
SAUNT
8% chance
Suggested:
SAUNT
8% chance
Suggested:
COAST

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

11.5%
SAUNT 5.90 bits
8.1%
SAUNT 5.49 bits
7.5%
COAST 4.79 bits
7.0%
ARSON 5.06 bits
6.4%
COAST 5.16 bits
5.6%
HOIST 4.93 bits
4.1%
SABLE 4.60 bits
3.1%
STADE 4.56 bits
3.0%
SNIDE 4.66 bits
2.5%
SNIDE 3.80 bits

Research on MERIL

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

Optimal play

Opening with MERIL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,773 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.77 guesses at best and is rank #572 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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
MERIL 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).