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

TARGE

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /tɑːd͡ʒ//tɑɹd͡ʒ/

Noun

A small shield.

Noun

A pendant or tassel.

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

Etymology

From Middle English targe, either: * from Old French targe, from Frankish *targā (“buckler”); or * from Old English targa (masculine) and targe (feminine); both ultimately from Old Norse targa (“round shield”) from Proto-Germanic *targǭ (“edge”), from Proto-Indo-European *derǵʰ- (“fenced lot”). Akin to Old High German zarga (“side wall, rim”) (German Zarge (“border, frame”)). However, the soft -g- seems to indicate a French origin.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use TARGE in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 96.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with TARGE 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 TARGE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TARGE 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 88.0% of games, misses completely in 12.0%, and leaves about 90 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #506 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.58 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___E T in the 1st position and E in the 5th position T__G_ T in the 1st position and G in the 4th position _A__E A in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe TARGE 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.

5.56 Entropy (bits)
90 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
96.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TARGE 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.

3.58 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#506 Rank among openers
Opening with TARGE left 1 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 3.58 average. It ranks #506 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
86
3 guesses
988
4 guesses
1,108
5 guesses
161
6 guesses
10

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AERT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
88%
Green tile
39%
All gray
12%

Feedback distribution

TARGE can come back 127 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

287 answers
137 answers
133 answers
129 answers
118 answers
105 answers
96 answers
80 answers
74 answers
68 answers
54 answers
50 answers
48 answers
43 answers
43 answers
39 answers
37 answers
33 answers
33 answers
32 answers
32 answers
29 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1A1R1G2E1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Try next

SOILY CLAIM OLDEN HOIST SLICE CRONY

Strategy after playing TARGE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TARGE:

12% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
6% chance
Suggested:
CLAIM
6% chance
Suggested:
OLDEN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.0% →
SOILY 5.72 bits
5.7% →
CLAIM 5.09 bits
5.6% →
OLDEN 4.95 bits
5.4% →
SOILY 3.84 bits
4.9% →
HOIST 5.12 bits
4.4% →
SLICE 4.65 bits
4.0% →
CRONY 4.74 bits
3.4% →
SONLY 4.74 bits
3.1% →
BRAND 4.23 bits
2.9% →
SLEET 4.55 bits

Research on TARGE

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

Optimal play

Opening with TARGE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.60 guesses and ranks #150 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.73 guesses at best and is rank #114 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.58, at or below the proven-optimal 3.60, 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
TARGE 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).