5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess B tier for first-turn info

TEASE

Yes, TEASE was the Wordle answer on March 15, 2022 (Wordle #269).

As an opener, it rules out about 95.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with TEASE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /tiːz/

Verb

To separate the fibres of (a fibrous material).

Verb

To comb (originally with teasels) so that the fibres all lie in one direction.

Noun

One who teases.

Noun

A single act of teasing.

Alternative forms: teaze, teize, tieze

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

Yes

Included in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.

Possible answer

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: March 15, 2022 (#269).

See the full page for that puzzle: March 15, 2022 (#269).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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How TEASE performs as a guess

TEASE 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 85.0% of games, misses completely in 15.0%, and leaves about 115 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,296 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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__S_ T in the 1st position and S in the 4th position _E__E E in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe TEASE 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.

5.30 Entropy (bits)
115 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 95% of evaluated openers
0.65 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TEASE 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#4,296 Rank among openers
Opening with TEASE left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,296 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
887
4 guesses
1,199
5 guesses
182
6 guesses
18
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

4/5 unique
3 vowels
Common:
AEST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
42%
All gray
15%

Example solver route

R O A T E
B E V E L
T E A S E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches TEASE in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

TEASE can come back 107 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

357 answers
213 answers
145 answers
112 answers
110 answers
104 answers
80 answers
73 answers
65 answers
59 answers
56 answers
48 answers
41 answers
37 answers
37 answers
36 answers
34 answers
31 answers
31 answers
30 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
24 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
19 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1E1A1S1E1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 5 points

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

Try next

COULD CAROL OLDEN NORTH SPINY NOIRE

Strategy after playing TEASE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TEASE:

15% chance
Suggested:
COULD
9% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
6% chance
Suggested:
OLDEN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.0% →
COULD 5.57 bits
9.0% →
CAROL 5.28 bits
6.1% →
OLDEN 4.83 bits
4.7% →
NORTH 4.87 bits
4.6% →
SPINY 4.70 bits
4.4% →
NOIRE 4.43 bits
3.4% →
CRINE 4.22 bits
3.1% →
LAGER 4.18 bits
2.7% →
CAPUT 3.90 bits
2.5% →
ROUET 3.80 bits

Research on TEASE

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

Optimal play

Opening with TEASE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,173 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 TEASE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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

One syllable Say it TEEZ.

Rhymes with THESE TREES KNEES SEIZE PLEAS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, TEASE is a kind of actor or woman.

Synonyms card ride RALLY bug cod bait

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TEASE sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B1); a word learners usually reach after the basics.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 6, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 42 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.

In a sentence

You like to tease him.
© tatoeba.org contributor frpzzd (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Don't tease me so much!
© tatoeba.org contributor terrywallwork (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0).