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

MOUSY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈmaʊsi/

Adjective

Resembling a mouse.

Adjective

Abounding in or infested with mice.

Noun

Diminutive of mouse.

Alternative forms: mousey, mousie

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How MOUSY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MOUSY 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 72.5% of games, misses completely in 27.5%, and leaves about 248 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,194 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 MOUSY 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.

4.44 Entropy (bits)
248 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 48% of evaluated openers
1.50 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MOUSY 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#7,194 Rank among openers
Opening with MOUSY 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 3.71 average. It ranks #7,194 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
872
4 guesses
1,185
5 guesses
238
6 guesses
15
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:
OSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
37%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

MOUSY can come back 89 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

652 answers
212 answers
206 answers
145 answers
113 answers
103 answers
70 answers
65 answers
62 answers
56 answers
47 answers
36 answers
36 answers
35 answers
31 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3O1U1S1Y4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing MOUSY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MOUSY:

27% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
9% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
9% chance
Suggested:
PARTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.5%
RAILE 6.09 bits
8.9%
TRONE 5.21 bits
8.7%
PARTE 5.32 bits
6.1%
TRADE 4.83 bits
4.8%
TRINE 5.06 bits
4.3%
RANCE 4.82 bits
2.9%
REACT 5.06 bits
2.7%
TRACE 4.84 bits
2.6%
REACT 4.07 bits
2.4%
RAILE 5.04 bits

Research on MOUSY

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

Optimal play

Opening with MOUSY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,279 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.88 guesses at best and is rank #3,642 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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

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

Related meanings

Synonyms TIMID

Opposites bold

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MOUSY 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.9 of 5).

In a sentence

Sarah is a mousy-quiet and reserved woman.
© tatoeba.org contributor cheryl_kannan (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Yanni was a shy mousy student.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).