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

TANTO

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈtɑntoʊ//ˈtæntoʊ//ˈtæntəʊ/

Noun

A traditional Japanese small sword or knife; often used as a secondary weapon to a katana.

Adverb

So much; too much.

Alternative forms: tantō, tantou

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

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese 短刀 (tantō), from Middle Chinese 短刀 (twan^X taw, “dagger”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use TANTO in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with TANTO Open Word Finder

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 TANTO performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TANTO 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 80.4% of games, misses completely in 19.6%, and leaves about 189 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,402 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

T___O T in the 1st position and O in the 5th position T__T_ T in the 1st position and T in the 4th position _A__O A in the 2nd position and O in the 5th position TA_TO T in the 1st position, A in the 2nd position, T in the 4th position, and O in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in TANTO.

First-turn measures

All four describe TANTO 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.

4.57 Entropy (bits)
189 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.1% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TANTO 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#7,402 Rank among openers
Opening with TANTO left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.71 average. It ranks #7,402 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
56
3 guesses
848
4 guesses
1,189
5 guesses
236
6 guesses
21

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ANOT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
28%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

TANTO can come back 93 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

467 answers
281 answers
258 answers
140 answers
118 answers
115 answers
88 answers
78 answers
73 answers
64 answers
62 answers
59 answers
41 answers
36 answers
34 answers
30 answers
26 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1A1N1T1O1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Try next

SLIER SCARE SOLER SLYER SILER DROLE

Strategy after playing TANTO

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TANTO:

20% chance
Suggested:
SLIER
12% chance
Suggested:
SCARE
11% chance
Suggested:
SOLER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.6% →
SLIER 6.09 bits
11.8% →
SCARE 5.42 bits
10.8% →
SOLER 5.14 bits
5.9% →
SLYER 4.80 bits
4.9% →
SILER 5.29 bits
4.8% →
SLIER 5.04 bits
3.7% →
DROLE 4.41 bits
3.3% →
SERAL 5.00 bits
3.1% →
GRISE 4.52 bits
2.7% →
SHIER 4.46 bits

Research on TANTO

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

Optimal play

Opening with TANTO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,623 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.88 guesses at best and is rank #3,837 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.76, 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
TANTO 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).