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

MORAY

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈmɒ.ɹeɪ//məˈɹeɪ//ˈmɔɹ.eɪ/

Noun

Any of the large cosmopolitan carnivorous eels of the family Muraenidae.

Alternative forms: maray, muray

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

Etymology

From Medieval Latin Moravia, Morauia, from Scottish Gaelic Moireibh, Moireabh, Moreb, ultimately from Proto-Celtic *mori (“sea”) + *trebā (“settlement”), of Pictish origin.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it MURAY.

Rhymes with TODAY DELAY ANIME ESSAY SPRAY

In a sentence

A moray eel bit me.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I was bitten by a moray eel.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use MORAY 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

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.

MORAY in Connections

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

How MORAY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MORAY 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 83.9% of games, misses completely in 16.1%, and leaves about 154 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,120 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 MORAY 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.

4.90 Entropy (bits)
154 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MORAY 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
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#4,120 Rank among openers
Opening with MORAY left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,120 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
72
3 guesses
926
4 guesses
1,109
5 guesses
231
6 guesses
14

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
37%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

MORAY can come back 114 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

385 answers
288 answers
203 answers
147 answers
136 answers
106 answers
96 answers
87 answers
68 answers
64 answers
49 answers
48 answers
44 answers
37 answers
37 answers
36 answers
35 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3O1R1A1Y4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing MORAY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MORAY:

16% chance
Suggested:
STILE
12% chance
Suggested:
SLATE
9% chance
Suggested:
TRIED

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.1% →
STILE 6.13 bits
12.1% →
SLATE 5.70 bits
8.5% →
TRIED 5.20 bits
6.2% →
TRICE 4.58 bits
5.7% →
STILE 5.09 bits
4.4% →
STILE 4.64 bits
4.0% →
TRINE 4.38 bits
3.6% →
SINCE 4.73 bits
2.9% →
SLANT 4.13 bits
2.7% →
SIENT 4.56 bits

Research on MORAY

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

Optimal play

Opening with MORAY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #5,134 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.84 guesses at best and is rank #2,577 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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
MORAY 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).