MOULD
MOULD is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
As an opener, it rules out about 89.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /məʊld//moʊld/[moːɫd]
- Noun
-
Commonwealth standard spelling of mold.
- Verb
-
Commonwealth standard spelling of mold.
- Noun
-
Commonwealth spelling of mold (“growth of tiny fungi”).
- Verb
-
Commonwealth spelling of mold (“to cause to become mouldy”).
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.
See the public dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →How MOULD performs as a guess
Wordle accepts MOULD 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 72.8% of games, misses completely in 27.2%, and leaves about 245 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,828 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe MOULD 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How MOULD 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Feedback distribution
MOULD can come back 99 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for MOULD; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing MOULD
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to MOULD.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing MOULD:
Research on MOULD
Game-tree analysis and word research for MOULD, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with MOULD, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,310 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 MOULD can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, MOULD is a kind of soil or solid.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- MOULD sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 3 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Learner level
- Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 75 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
In a sentence
There's mould on the walls.
There's mould on the bathroom walls.
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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0).