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

MOTON

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A small plate covering the armpit in armour of the 14th century and later.

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

Etymology

From Middle English moton, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Old French, compare Norman moton (“chin”), from Old French menton (“chin; mentonnière, chinguard (of a helmet)”); alternatively, compare mouton (“sheepskin”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

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

Use MOTON in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 86.8% 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 MOTON performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MOTON 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 69.1% of games, misses completely in 30.9%, and leaves about 315 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,181 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.72 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 MOTON 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.

4.09 Entropy (bits)
315 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
86.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MOTON 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.

3.72 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#8,181 Rank among openers
Opening with MOTON left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.72 average. It ranks #8,181 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
62
3 guesses
802
4 guesses
1,228
5 guesses
243
6 guesses
17

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
NOT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
69%
Green tile
28%
All gray
31%

Feedback distribution

MOTON can come back 93 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

737 answers
309 answers
218 answers
119 answers
115 answers
106 answers
71 answers
67 answers
57 answers
49 answers
45 answers
36 answers
35 answers
31 answers
30 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3O1T1O1N1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing MOTON

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MOTON:

31% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
13% chance
Suggested:
REAST
9% chance
Suggested:
SAICE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.9% →
RAILE 6.23 bits
13.0% →
REAST 5.69 bits
9.1% →
SAICE 5.39 bits
5.0% →
SACRE 5.13 bits
4.8% →
CARLE 4.87 bits
4.4% →
PLACE 5.27 bits
3.0% →
GAUNT 4.54 bits
2.8% →
CARPE 4.54 bits
2.4% →
ARIEL 4.76 bits
2.1% →
SUCRE 4.39 bits

Research on MOTON

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

Optimal play

Opening with MOTON, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #8,988 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.89 guesses at best and is rank #4,017 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.72, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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
MOTON sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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).