MINOR
MINOR is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈmaɪ.nəɹ//ˈmaɪnə/
- Adjective
-
Lesser, smaller in importance, size, degree, seriousness, or significance compared to another option, particularly
- Adjective
-
Lesser, smaller in importance, size, degree, seriousness, or significance compared to another option
“The defendant resides at 123 Fake Street with his partner and two minor children.”
- Noun
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A child, a person who has not reached the age of majority, consent, etc. and is legally subject to fewer responsibilities and less accountability and entitled to fewer legal rights and privileges.
“No, he can't get a mortgage or sell the house. He's still a minor. For the most part, he can't sign a legally binding contract.”
- Noun
-
A lesser person or thing, a person, group, or thing of minor rank or in the minor leagues.
“He plays in the minors.”
Alternative forms: miner, maner, minore, minour
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English minor, menor, menour, etc., from Latin minor (“lesser; young; young person”) both directly and via Norman and Middle French menor, menour, etc. Doublet of minus but not mini-. Cognate with minister, minify, Minorca, Menshevik, and possibly minnow. Compare Latin minimum and minuō, Old High German minniro, Cornish minow.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it MYNUR.
Rhymes with LINER MINER DINER FINER NINER
Related meanings
Synonyms SMALL CHILD kid modest fry underage
Opposites MAJOR senior unlimited
In a sentence
It's just a minor problem.
You do know I'm a minor, right?
Use MINOR 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
No completed appearanceNo appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.
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 →MINOR in Connections
1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #272
Reveal this appearance's category
MINOR appeared in AREAS OF ACADEMIC FOCUS (green group).
How MINOR performs as a guess
MINOR 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 81.7% of games, misses completely in 18.3%, and leaves about 156 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,088 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 MINOR 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 MINOR 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 MINOR in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
MINOR can come back 105 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 MINOR; 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 MINOR
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to MINOR.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing MINOR:
Research on MINOR
Game-tree analysis and word research for MINOR, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with MINOR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,511 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with MINOR can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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
- MINOR sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 42 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 9, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 39 of 100. Raters found it difficult to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.1 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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).