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

MOATS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.3% of possible answers.

Open Solver with MOATS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of moat

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 MOATS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MOATS 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 83.6% of games, misses completely in 16.4%, and leaves about 136 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,118 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.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

M___S M in the 1st position and S in the 5th position M__T_ M in the 1st position and T in the 4th position _O__S O in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position MO_TS M in the 1st position, O in the 2nd position, T in the 4th position, and S in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in MOATS.

First-turn measures

All four describe MOATS 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.

5.03 Entropy (bits)
136 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 85% of evaluated openers
0.92 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MOATS 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#1,118 Rank among openers
Opening with MOATS left 2 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 3.60 average. It ranks #1,118 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
72
3 guesses
979
4 guesses
1,130
5 guesses
155
6 guesses
16
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:
AOST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
33%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

MOATS can come back 110 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

390 answers
220 answers
148 answers
132 answers
128 answers
120 answers
113 answers
84 answers
65 answers
61 answers
59 answers
57 answers
48 answers
47 answers
39 answers
39 answers
35 answers
28 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3O1A1T1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

LINER CARLE SLIER CRINE DROLE DRICE

Strategy after playing MOATS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MOATS:

16% chance
Suggested:
LINER
9% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
6% chance
Suggested:
SLIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.4% →
LINER 6.00 bits
9.3% →
CARLE 5.40 bits
6.2% →
SLIER 5.26 bits
5.6% →
CRINE 5.31 bits
5.4% →
CRINE 5.27 bits
5.1% →
DROLE 4.45 bits
4.8% →
DRICE 4.92 bits
3.5% →
CARLE 4.57 bits
2.7% →
SIREN 4.55 bits
2.6% →
SHULE 4.27 bits

Research on MOATS

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

Optimal play

Opening with MOATS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,110 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.76 guesses at best and is rank #549 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 3.66, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it MOHTS.

Rhymes with NOTES VOTES BOATS COATS GOATS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, MOATS is a kind of trench.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MOATS sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.3 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).