TARDY
Yes, TARDY was the Wordle answer on November 17, 2023 (Wordle #881).
As an opener, it rules out about 94.2% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈtɑːdi//ˈtɑɹdi/
- Adjective
-
Late; overdue or delayed.
“He yawned, then raised a tardy hand over his mouth.”
- Adjective
-
Moving with a slow pace or motion; not swift.
- Noun
-
A piece of paper given to students who are late to class.
“The teacher gave her a tardy because she did not come into the classroom until after the bell.”
- Noun
-
An instance of a student's being marked as tardy by a teacher on the teacher's attendance sheet.
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: November 17, 2023 (#881).
See the full page for that puzzle: November 17, 2023 (#881).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How TARDY performs as a guess
TARDY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 84.5% of games, misses completely in 15.5%, and leaves about 137 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #833 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe TARDY 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How TARDY 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches TARDY in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
TARDY can come back 113 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for TARDY; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing TARDY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to TARDY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing TARDY:
Research on TARDY
Game-tree analysis and word research for TARDY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with TARDY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,567 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 TARDY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it TAHRDEE.
Related meanings
Synonyms late belated
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- TARDY 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.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.5 of 5).
In a sentence
Leave now so you're not tardy.
They got the sack for being careless and tardy.
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).