5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess C tier for first-turn info

MERRY

Yes, MERRY was the Wordle answer on October 2, 2023 (Wordle #835).

As an opener, it rules out about 89.6% of possible answers.

Open Solver with MERRY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈmɛ.ɹi//ˈmɛ(ə)ɹ.i//ˈmeɹ.i/

Adjective

Jolly and full of high spirits; happy.

“We had a very merry Christmas.”

Adjective

Festive and full of fun and laughter.

“Everyone was merry at the party.”

Noun

An English wild cherry.

Alternative forms: merie, merrie, mery

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: October 2, 2023 (#835).

See the full page for that puzzle: October 2, 2023 (#835).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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How MERRY performs as a guess

MERRY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 78.1% of games, misses completely in 21.9%, and leaves about 246 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,195 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

M___Y M in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position M__R_ M in the 1st position and R in the 4th position _E__Y E in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in MERRY.

First-turn measures

All four describe MERRY 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.

4.21 Entropy (bits)
246 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
89.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 33% of evaluated openers
1.74 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MERRY 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.

3.79 Avg guesses
99.79% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#11,195 Rank among openers
Opening with MERRY left 5 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.79 average. It ranks #11,195 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
740
4 guesses
1,241
5 guesses
291
6 guesses
27
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
1 vowels
Common:
ER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
36%
All gray
22%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E D
S P E R M
M E R R Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches MERRY in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

MERRY can come back 83 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

521 answers
409 answers
209 answers
194 answers
177 answers
105 answers
65 answers
59 answers
49 answers
41 answers
37 answers
36 answers
33 answers
32 answers
27 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3E1R1R1Y4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

SAINT SLANT STAIR SAULT SHALT CLAIM

Strategy after playing MERRY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MERRY:

22% chance
Suggested:
SAINT
17% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
9% chance
Suggested:
STAIR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.9% →
SAINT 6.19 bits
17.2% →
SLANT 5.72 bits
8.8% →
STAIR 4.27 bits
8.2% →
SAULT 4.73 bits
7.5% →
SAINT 5.03 bits
4.4% →
SHALT 4.67 bits
2.7% →
CLAIM 4.69 bits
2.5% →
SHALT 4.70 bits
2.1% →
COAST 4.87 bits
1.7% →
ALOSE 4.51 bits

Research on MERRY

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

Optimal play

Opening with MERRY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,920 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.02 guesses at best and is rank #6,458 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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 MEHREE.

Rhymes with HARRY MARRY SCARY JERRY TERRY

Related meanings

Synonyms gay ALERT lively festive JOLLY spanking

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MERRY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 7 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 44 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.

In a sentence

I could have been merry with you.
© tatoeba.org contributor maaster (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He is a merry fellow.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0).