Possible answer Not used yet F tier for first-turn info

MINIM

MINIM is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 74.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈmɪ.nɪm/

Noun

A half note, drawn as a semibreve with a stem.

Noun

A unit of volume, in the Imperial and U.S. customary systems, ¹⁄₆₀ fluid drachm. Approximately equal to 1 drop, 62 μL or 0.9 grain (weight) of water.

Alternative forms: minom, minum

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

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 MINIM performs as a guess

MINIM 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 52.0% of games, misses completely in 48.0%, and leaves about 610 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,585 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.97 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 MINIM 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.

3.04 Entropy (bits)
610 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
74.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 2% of evaluated openers
2.90 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MINIM 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.

3.97 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#14,585 Rank among openers
Opening with MINIM left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 3.97 average. It ranks #14,585 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
22
3 guesses
571
4 guesses
1,255
5 guesses
457
6 guesses
44
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

3/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
IN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
52%
Green tile
24%
All gray
48%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I M Y
C U M I N
M I N I M

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches MINIM in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

MINIM can come back 46 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1139 answers
252 answers
173 answers
126 answers
94 answers
91 answers
91 answers
82 answers
59 answers
32 answers
30 answers
30 answers
25 answers
18 answers
17 answers
11 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
5 answers
3 answers
3 answers
2 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3I1N1I1M3
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing MINIM

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MINIM:

48% chance
Suggested:
TARSE
11% chance
Suggested:
SOARE
7% chance
Suggested:
STALE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

48.0%
TARSE 6.32 bits
10.6%
SOARE 5.41 bits
7.3%
STALE 5.15 bits
5.3%
SATER 4.48 bits
4.0%
STAGE 4.22 bits
3.8%
TALER 5.14 bits
3.8%
PRASE 5.04 bits
3.5%
CAGEY 4.62 bits
2.5%
HAOLE 4.66 bits
1.3%
SERAL 4.69 bits

Research on MINIM

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

Optimal play

Opening with MINIM, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.96 guesses and ranks #14,520 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.12 guesses at best and is rank #7,208 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.97, at or below the proven-optimal 3.96, 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 MIHNEEM. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, MINIM is a kind of note.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MINIM 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.

In a sentence

His odes shall be read with minim, or crochet, or quaver rests.
© tatoeba.org contributor remline (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).