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

MOANS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of moan

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of moan

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

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 MOANS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MOANS 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 83.2% of games, misses completely in 16.8%, and leaves about 143 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,626 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 MOANS 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.

4.94 Entropy (bits)
143 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 80% of evaluated openers
1.00 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MOANS 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#1,626 Rank among openers
Opening with MOANS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.61 average. It ranks #1,626 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
52
3 guesses
997
4 guesses
1,130
5 guesses
159
6 guesses
15
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ANOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
35%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

MOANS can come back 95 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

398 answers
243 answers
172 answers
123 answers
120 answers
115 answers
110 answers
77 answers
76 answers
59 answers
57 answers
56 answers
53 answers
53 answers
34 answers
34 answers
27 answers
26 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3O1A1N1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing MOANS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MOANS:

17% chance
Suggested:
TRIED
10% chance
Suggested:
TALER
7% chance
Suggested:
STIRE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.8%
TRIED 6.05 bits
10.2%
TALER 5.59 bits
7.2%
STIRE 5.41 bits
5.2%
TRICE 5.03 bits
5.1%
TRUCE 5.05 bits
4.8%
CLOTE 4.33 bits
4.6%
DINER 5.01 bits
3.2%
SALET 4.79 bits
3.2%
THALE 4.31 bits
2.5%
LANCE 4.67 bits

Research on MOANS

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

Optimal play

Opening with MOANS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,668 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 #1,226 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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

One syllable Say it MOHNZ.

Rhymes with JONES LOANS BONES ZONES TONES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, MOANS is a kind of communication or utter.

Synonyms GROAN

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MOANS 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 sound (4.3 of 5).

In a sentence

He is letting out moans.
© tatoeba.org contributor anzart (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The moans were coming from the window.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).