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

TABOR

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈteɪbə(ɹ)/

Noun

A small drum.

Verb

To make (a sound) with a tabor.

Verb

To strike lightly and frequently.

Noun

A military train of men and wagons; an encampment of such resources.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From Middle English, from Old French tabour, from Arabic طُنْبُور (ṭunbūr), ultimately from the Middle Persian ancestor of Classical Persian تنبور (tanbūr). Doublet of tambour and tanbur.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

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

Rhymes with LABOR SABER SABRE TABER SABIR

Use TABOR in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.9% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How TABOR performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TABOR 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 85.4% of games, misses completely in 14.6%, and leaves about 122 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #743 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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 TABOR 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.

5.18 Entropy (bits)
122 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TABOR 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#743 Rank among openers
Opening with TABOR left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.59 average. It ranks #743 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
77
3 guesses
997
4 guesses
1,097
5 guesses
171
6 guesses
10

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AORT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
30%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

TABOR can come back 122 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

347 answers
199 answers
172 answers
152 answers
134 answers
102 answers
101 answers
84 answers
78 answers
63 answers
63 answers
50 answers
44 answers
43 answers
39 answers
37 answers
35 answers
31 answers
31 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1A1B3O1R1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing TABOR

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TABOR:

15% chance
Suggested:
SLICE
8% chance
Suggested:
SLANE
7% chance
Suggested:
CLONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.6% →
SLICE 6.06 bits
8.3% →
SLANE 5.54 bits
7.2% →
CLONE 5.19 bits
6.4% →
SPICE 5.39 bits
5.6% →
SIENT 5.19 bits
4.3% →
SIDLE 4.55 bits
4.2% →
CRANE 4.57 bits
3.5% →
DRONE 4.35 bits
3.3% →
SLANE 4.88 bits
2.6% →
SIDLE 3.70 bits

Research on TABOR

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

Optimal play

Opening with TABOR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,145 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 TABOR can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TABOR 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).