MUMMY

Meaning

An embalmed human or animal corpse wrapped in linen bandages for burial, especially as practised by the ancient Egyptians and some Native American tribes.

• verbTo mummify.

MUMMY as a word-puzzle answer

MUMMY is a 5-letter word with 1 vowel (U) and 4 consonants (M, M, M, Y). It repeats 2 letters, which is a classic trap — guessers who assume five distinct letters get stuck.

There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.

MUMMY by the numbers

Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, U appears in 18% of answers (the 12th most common letter), Y appears in 14% of answers (the 14th most common letter), M appears in 12% of answers (the 17th most common letter). 6 other answers share the opening “MU-”, so two green tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.

Difficulty: 4/5 — tricky, because the repeated letter hides one position.

Near misses

One letter away in the answer bank: DUMMY, YUMMY. Each of these turns four tiles green against MUMMY — the classic endgame squeeze where spending a guess on the differing letter beats burning attempts on hope.

Put it to use

Words like MUMMY are exactly what the daily puzzles throw at you. Warm up in Practice, race the clock in the Daily Challenge, or study the best starting words before your next run. New to the multi-board modes? The mode guides cover all nine.