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

TATER

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈteɪtə//ˈteɪtɚ/

Noun

A potato.

“We ate them taters up real good.”

Noun

A home run.

Alternative forms: tader, 'tater

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

Etymology

Representing an aphetic pronunciation of potato. Compare patater (“potato”), 'mater (“tomato”), and 'naner (“banana”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

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

Rhymes with LATER CATER GATOR HATER PATER

Related meanings

Synonyms murphy potato

In a sentence

I'll make some tater tots for the kids.
© tatoeba.org contributor Eccles17 (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use TATER in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 94.8% 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 TATER performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TATER 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 85.5% of games, misses completely in 14.5%, and leaves about 125 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,294 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 TATER 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.

5.08 Entropy (bits)
125 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TATER 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#6,294 Rank among openers
Opening with TATER left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,294 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
71
3 guesses
865
4 guesses
1,154
5 guesses
243
6 guesses
18

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AERT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
34%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

TATER can come back 111 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

346 answers
219 answers
155 answers
137 answers
109 answers
108 answers
108 answers
95 answers
91 answers
87 answers
72 answers
58 answers
55 answers
48 answers
46 answers
44 answers
34 answers
31 answers
30 answers
23 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1A1T1E1R1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 5 points

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

Strategy after playing TATER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TATER:

15% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
9% chance
Suggested:
SEINE
7% chance
Suggested:
SLAIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.5% →
SOILY 5.73 bits
9.2% →
SEINE 5.39 bits
6.5% →
SLAIN 5.12 bits
5.7% →
CRONY 4.73 bits
4.6% →
SLADE 4.65 bits
4.5% →
POISE 4.52 bits
4.5% →
SNOUT 5.00 bits
4.0% →
SONLY 4.63 bits
3.8% →
SOILY 3.59 bits
3.6% →
BRAND 4.13 bits

Research on TATER

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

Optimal play

Opening with TATER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,348 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 TATER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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
TATER 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).