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

MUNGE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 90.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /mʌnd͡ʒ/

Verb

To transform data in an undefined or unexplained manner, as for example when data wrangling requires nonsystemic or nonsystematic edits.

Verb

To add a spamblock to (an email address).

Alternative forms: mung

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 MUNGE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts MUNGE 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 77.0% of games, misses completely in 23.0%, and leaves about 227 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,854 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 MUNGE 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.

4.52 Entropy (bits)
227 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 53% of evaluated openers
1.43 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How MUNGE 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#5,854 Rank among openers
Opening with MUNGE left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,854 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
63
3 guesses
863
4 guesses
1,198
5 guesses
212
6 guesses
16
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:
ENU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
33%
All gray
23%

Feedback distribution

MUNGE can come back 102 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

546 answers
375 answers
199 answers
132 answers
89 answers
82 answers
71 answers
67 answers
47 answers
47 answers
46 answers
45 answers
41 answers
37 answers
31 answers
27 answers
25 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

M3U1N1G2E1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Strategy after playing MUNGE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing MUNGE:

23% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL
16% chance
Suggested:
SOLAR
8% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.0%
TRAIL 6.04 bits
15.8%
SOLAR 5.21 bits
8.4%
SLART 5.42 bits
5.6%
TRAIN 5.24 bits
3.7%
SLART 5.11 bits
3.5%
LATER 4.50 bits
3.0%
SLART 4.34 bits
2.8%
SOAPY 4.77 bits
2.0%
SORAL 4.75 bits
2.0%
ROAST 3.96 bits

Research on MUNGE

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

Optimal play

Opening with MUNGE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,255 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.85 guesses at best and is rank #2,878 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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 MUHNJ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
MUNGE 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), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).