5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess B tier for first-turn info

MOULT

Yes, MOULT was the Wordle answer on September 26, 2021 (Wordle #99).

As an opener, it rules out about 92.5% of possible answers.

Open Solver with MOULT Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /moʊlt//mɒlt//məʊlt/

Noun

The process of shedding or losing a covering of fur, feathers or skin etc.

“Some birds change colour during their winter moult.”

Noun

The skin or feathers cast off during the process of moulting.

Verb

To shed or lose a covering of hair or fur, feathers, skin, horns, etc, and replace it with a fresh one.

Verb

To shed in such a manner.

Alternative forms: molt

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

Yes

Included in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.

Possible answer

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: September 26, 2021 (#99).

See the full page for that puzzle: September 26, 2021 (#99).

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

Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.

See the public data

The Observatory retains the selected puzzle, result, rating, optional Hard Mode answer and a random one-puzzle receipt. It stores no answer word, grid, guesses, account, email, IP-derived ID or reusable player identifier.

How verification and withdrawal work

The answer word and timezone are used transiently to verify this page, then discarded. The receipt prevents duplicate submissions and lets this browser withdraw later; anyone with that token can withdraw, so keep browser-data exports private. Read the full privacy details.

How MOULT performs as a guess

MOULT is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 78.9% of games, misses completely in 21.1%, and leaves about 178 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,915 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

M___T M in the 1st position and T in the 5th position M__L_ M in the 1st position and L in the 4th position _O__T O in the 2nd position and T in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in MOULT.

First-turn measures

All four describe MOULT 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.

4.83 Entropy (bits)
178 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 74% of evaluated openers
1.11 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MOULT 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#1,915 Rank among openers
Opening with MOULT 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 3.62 average. It ranks #1,915 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
62
3 guesses
991
4 guesses
1,100
5 guesses
182
6 guesses
18
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
LOTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
35%
All gray
21%

Example solver route

R O A T E
C U M I N
M O U L T

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches MOULT in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

MOULT can come back 104 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

501 answers
211 answers
192 answers
171 answers
114 answers
99 answers
97 answers
73 answers
59 answers
56 answers
43 answers
39 answers
35 answers
33 answers
33 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3O1U1L1T1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

RAISE TARTE CRANE SIREN ARISE RANSE

Strategy after playing MOULT

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MOULT:

21% chance
Suggested:
RAISE
9% chance
Suggested:
RAISE
8% chance
Suggested:
TARTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.1% →
RAISE 6.04 bits
8.9% →
RAISE 5.34 bits
8.1% →
TARTE 5.64 bits
7.2% →
CRANE 5.53 bits
4.8% →
SIREN 5.07 bits
4.2% →
ARISE 5.20 bits
4.1% →
RANSE 4.60 bits
3.1% →
RAISE 4.65 bits
2.5% →
ARISE 5.07 bits
2.4% →
SLANE 4.14 bits

Research on MOULT

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

Optimal play

Opening with MOULT, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,629 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 MOULT can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it MAWLT. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, MOULT is a kind of shedding or drop.

Synonyms shed slough

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MOULT sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).