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

TANGS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of tang

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 TANGS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TANGS 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 81.7% of games, misses completely in 18.3%, and leaves about 153 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,391 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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 TANGS 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.

4.87 Entropy (bits)
153 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 76% of evaluated openers
1.08 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TANGS 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#2,391 Rank among openers
Opening with TANGS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.63 average. It ranks #2,391 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
56
3 guesses
947
4 guesses
1,179
5 guesses
162
6 guesses
9
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
1 vowels
Common:
ANST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
26%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

TANGS can come back 94 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

435 answers
219 answers
177 answers
143 answers
120 answers
100 answers
94 answers
84 answers
67 answers
63 answers
58 answers
56 answers
51 answers
46 answers
44 answers
42 answers
36 answers
34 answers
33 answers
29 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1A1N1G2S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing TANGS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TANGS:

18% chance
Suggested:
DROLE
9% chance
Suggested:
DROLE
7% chance
Suggested:
SOREL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.3%
DROLE 6.02 bits
9.2%
DROLE 5.41 bits
7.5%
SOREL 5.28 bits
6.0%
ROUTE 5.17 bits
5.1%
DROLE 5.23 bits
4.2%
COREY 4.64 bits
4.0%
ROUET 4.68 bits
3.5%
CHARE 4.71 bits
2.8%
PLORE 4.80 bits
2.7%
CRIME 4.84 bits

Research on TANGS

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

Optimal play

Opening with TANGS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,152 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.77 guesses at best and is rank #620 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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 TANGZ.

Rhymes with GANGS HANGS BANGS FANGS PANGS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, TANGS is a kind of dynasty or spice.

Synonyms flavor flavour SMACK nip relish zest

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TANGS 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with taste (3.6 of 5).

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).