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

MOTZA

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A lot of money.

Noun

Alternative form of matzo.

Alternative forms: motser

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

Etymology

Probably from motza, a variant of matzo, or its etymon Yiddish מצה (matse, “(unleavened) bread”). Compare bread, dough (“money”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use MOTZA in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.0% 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 MOTZA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MOTZA 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 77.1% of games, misses completely in 22.9%, and leaves about 263 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,527 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 MOTZA 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.

4.05 Entropy (bits)
263 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MOTZA 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.79% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#10,527 Rank among openers
Opening with MOTZA left 5 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 3.77 average. It ranks #10,527 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
758
4 guesses
1,249
5 guesses
275
6 guesses
21

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AOT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
22%
All gray
23%

Feedback distribution

MOTZA can come back 75 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

545 answers
426 answers
208 answers
179 answers
164 answers
149 answers
66 answers
66 answers
62 answers
48 answers
44 answers
39 answers
37 answers
27 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
13 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3O1T1Z10A1
Total: 16 points

Words With Friends

Total: 17 points

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

Strategy after playing MOTZA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MOTZA:

23% chance
Suggested:
SLIER
18% chance
Suggested:
RANSE
9% chance
Suggested:
SHIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.9% →
SLIER 6.08 bits
17.9% →
RANSE 5.34 bits
8.7% →
SHIER 5.55 bits
7.5% →
CRINE 5.30 bits
6.9% →
SNARE 4.84 bits
6.2% →
SLYER 4.64 bits
2.8% →
ARSON 4.54 bits
2.8% →
SHIRE 4.50 bits
2.6% →
PLIER 5.00 bits
2.0% →
PRASE 4.56 bits

Research on MOTZA

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

Optimal play

Opening with MOTZA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,163 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 MOTZA can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.81, 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
MOTZA 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).