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

MOTHY

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

Resembling or characteristic of a moth.

Adjective

infested with moths

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

Related meanings

Synonyms worn troubled

Opposites new

Use MOTHY in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 88.9% 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.

How MOTHY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MOTHY 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 72.4% of games, misses completely in 27.6%, and leaves about 266 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,138 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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 MOTHY 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.

4.27 Entropy (bits)
266 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MOTHY 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#7,138 Rank among openers
Opening with MOTHY solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #7,138 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
52
3 guesses
861
4 guesses
1,188
5 guesses
236
6 guesses
17

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
OT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
32%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

MOTHY can come back 88 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

657 answers
278 answers
201 answers
166 answers
133 answers
102 answers
87 answers
65 answers
56 answers
44 answers
37 answers
35 answers
34 answers
33 answers
29 answers
28 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3O1T1H4Y4
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing MOTHY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MOTHY:

28% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
12% chance
Suggested:
SNARE
8% chance
Suggested:
CRANE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.6% →
RAILE 6.21 bits
11.7% →
SNARE 5.69 bits
8.4% →
CRANE 5.32 bits
7.0% →
LAIDE 4.74 bits
5.6% →
CARLE 5.48 bits
4.3% →
SILER 4.71 bits
3.6% →
PRASE 5.35 bits
2.7% →
ALURE 4.41 bits
2.3% →
TARTE 4.89 bits
1.8% →
DROLE 3.69 bits

Research on MOTHY

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

Optimal play

Opening with MOTHY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,358 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 MOTHY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).