TEARS
TEARS is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
As an opener, it rules out about 96.7% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /tɪɹz//tɪəz//tiːɹz/
- Noun
-
plural of tear (“liquid from the eyes”)
- Noun
-
Viscous streaks left on the inside of the glass when certain wines are swirled around before tasting.
- Verb
-
third-person singular simple present indicative of tear
- Interjection
-
Ellipsis of in tears (“laughing; in disbelief”)
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
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
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 →Why this solver ranks TEARS highly
This solver ranks TEARS highly because it separates the possible answers well, even though it is not itself a possible answer.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 90.1% of games, misses completely in 9.9%, and leaves about 78 possible answers on average.
In the current bounded six-turn policy, it ranks #98 of 182 evaluated openers; exact misses rank first, then average guesses among wins.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #172 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.56 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 TEARS 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 TEARS 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
Feedback distribution
TEARS can come back 130 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 TEARS; 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 TEARS
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to TEARS.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing TEARS:
Research on TEARS
Game-tree analysis and word research for TEARS, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with TEARS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.60 guesses and ranks #146 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.71 guesses at best and is rank #29 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.56, 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, TEARS is a kind of activity.
Synonyms crying weeping
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- TEARS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 30 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.3 of 5).
In a sentence
This will end in tears.
His life is made of tears.
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).