MINCE
Yes, MINCE was the Wordle answer on April 14, 2022 (Wordle #299).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /mɪns/
- Noun
-
Finely chopped meat; minced meat.
“Mince tastes really good fried in a pan with some chopped onion and tomato.”
- Noun
-
Finely chopped mixed fruit used in Christmas pies; mincemeat.
“During Christmas time my dad loves to eat mince pies.”
- Verb
-
To make less; to make small.
- Verb
-
To lessen; to diminish; to diminish in speaking; to speak of lightly or slightingly; to minimise.
Alternative forms: minch, minse
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English mincen, minsen; partly from Old English minsian, ġeminsian (“to make less, make smaller, diminish”), from Proto-West Germanic *minnisōn, from Proto-Germanic *minnisōną (“to make less”); partly from Old French mincer, mincier (“to cut into small pieces”), from mince (“slender, slight, puny”), from Frankish *minsto, *minnisto, superlative of *min, *minn (“small, less”), from Proto-Germanic *minniz (“less”); both from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“small, little”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it MIHNS.
Related meanings
Synonyms moderate soften
In a sentence
I do not mince words.
He didn't mince his words.
Use MINCE in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 93.5% 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
Used oncePast Wordle answer: April 14, 2022 (#299).
See the full page for that puzzle: April 14, 2022 (#299).
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 →MINCE in Connections
3 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #968
Reveal this appearance's category
MINCE appeared in CUT INTO PIECES (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #786
Reveal this appearance's category
MINCE appeared in MAKE INTO SMALLER PIECES WHILE COOKING (green group).
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· Puzzle #343
Reveal this appearance's category
MINCE appeared in CUT INTO PIECES (green group).
How MINCE performs as a guess
MINCE 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 83.1% of games, misses completely in 16.9%, and leaves about 155 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,087 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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 MINCE 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 MINCE 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 MINCE in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
MINCE can come back 108 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 MINCE; 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 MINCE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to MINCE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing MINCE:
Research on MINCE
Game-tree analysis and word research for MINCE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with MINCE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,797 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.79 guesses at best and is rank #1,114 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- MINCE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once 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 (2.3 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).