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

TAUON

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈtaʊɑn/

Noun

An unstable elementary particle which is a type of lepton, having a mass almost twice that of a proton, a negative charge, and a spin of ½; it decays into hadrons (usually pions) or other leptons, and neutrinos.

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

Etymology

From tau + -on, named after the Greek letter ταῦ (taû), the initial letter of Ancient Greek τρίτος (trítos, “third”), being the third lepton discovered.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use TAUON in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 95.0% 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 TAUON performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TAUON 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 87.3% of games, misses completely in 12.7%, and leaves about 120 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,013 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 TAUON 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.

5.19 Entropy (bits)
120 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TAUON 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#2,013 Rank among openers
Opening with TAUON left 3 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 3.62 average. It ranks #2,013 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
992
4 guesses
1,080
5 guesses
197
6 guesses
16

Composition

5/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
ANOTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
32%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

TAUON can come back 113 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

303 answers
250 answers
199 answers
128 answers
120 answers
120 answers
97 answers
93 answers
59 answers
52 answers
51 answers
49 answers
47 answers
44 answers
40 answers
35 answers
33 answers
32 answers
31 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1A1U1O1N1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing TAUON

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TAUON:

13% chance
Suggested:
SILER
10% chance
Suggested:
SCARE
8% chance
Suggested:
DROLE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.7% →
SILER 5.87 bits
10.5% →
SCARE 5.37 bits
8.3% →
DROLE 5.21 bits
5.4% →
SLYER 4.78 bits
5.0% →
SMILE 4.77 bits
5.0% →
SHIRT 5.14 bits
4.1% →
SIDEY 4.85 bits
3.9% →
SERAL 4.92 bits
2.5% →
MORSE 4.62 bits
2.2% →
CRINE 4.58 bits

Research on TAUON

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

Optimal play

Opening with TAUON, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,690 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 TAUON can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).