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

MISTY

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈmɪsti/

Adjective

Covered in mist; foggy.

“It's very misty this morning; I can't see a thing!”

Adjective

Dim; vague; obscure.

“a misty memory of his childhood”

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

Etymology

From Middle English misty, mysty, misti, from Old English mistiġ (“misty, dark”), from Proto-West Germanic *mistig (“misty”), equivalent to mist + -y. Cognate with Scots misty, mistie (“misty”), West Frisian mistich (“misty, foggy”), Dutch mistig (“misty, foggy”), German Low German mistig (“foggy”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it MIHSTEE.

Related meanings

Synonyms FOGGY hazy wet cloudy

Opposites CLEAR dry

In a sentence

It was cold and misty.
© tatoeba.org contributor sundown (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The girl disappeared in the misty forest.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use MISTY in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.9% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No 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.

MISTY in Connections

1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How MISTY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MISTY 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 76.4% of games, misses completely in 23.6%, and leaves about 216 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,411 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 MISTY 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.

4.50 Entropy (bits)
216 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MISTY 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#4,411 Rank among openers
Opening with MISTY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,411 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
63
3 guesses
888
4 guesses
1,203
5 guesses
184
6 guesses
15

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
30%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

MISTY can come back 99 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

562 answers
227 answers
208 answers
184 answers
159 answers
106 answers
81 answers
79 answers
79 answers
57 answers
45 answers
39 answers
32 answers
30 answers
30 answers
27 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3I1S1T1Y4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing MISTY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MISTY:

24% chance
Suggested:
CRANE
10% chance
Suggested:
PHARE
9% chance
Suggested:
CARET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.6% →
CRANE 6.21 bits
9.5% →
PHARE 5.58 bits
8.7% →
CARET 5.53 bits
7.7% →
CRANE 5.52 bits
6.7% →
DROLE 4.98 bits
4.4% →
REAST 4.78 bits
3.4% →
TRINE 4.77 bits
3.3% →
RANCE 4.69 bits
3.3% →
BLAER 5.31 bits
2.4% →
SPINE 4.35 bits

Research on MISTY

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

Optimal play

Opening with MISTY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,551 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 MISTY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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
MISTY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.7 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; Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).