MELEE

Meaning

A battle fought at close range; hand-to-hand combat; brawling.

• verbTo physically hit in close quarters, as opposed to shooting, blowing up, or other ranged means of damage. Often refers to the usage of a hand-to-hand weapon.

MELEE as a word-puzzle answer

MELEE is a 5-letter word with 3 vowels (E, E, E) and 2 consonants (M, L). It repeats 2 letters, which is a classic trap — guessers who assume five distinct letters get stuck.

It leans on high-frequency letters (E), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.

MELEE by the numbers

Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, E appears in 50% of answers (the 1st most common letter), L appears in 26% of answers (the 8th most common letter), M appears in 12% of answers (the 17th most common letter). 14 other answers share the opening “ME-”, so two green tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.

Difficulty: 2/5 — approachable, because the repeated letter hides one position.

Put it to use

Words like MELEE 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.