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

TEEMS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of teem

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

No

The solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.

Past Wordle answer

Not used yet

No past answer date found.

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

How TEEMS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TEEMS 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 77.8% of games, misses completely in 22.2%, and leaves about 213 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,544 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 TEEMS 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.

4.44 Entropy (bits)
213 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 48% of evaluated openers
1.50 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TEEMS 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#8,544 Rank among openers
Opening with TEEMS left 3 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 3.73 average. It ranks #8,544 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
51
3 guesses
788
4 guesses
1,273
5 guesses
221
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
2 vowels
Common:
EST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
27%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

TEEMS can come back 82 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

526 answers
319 answers
189 answers
175 answers
108 answers
108 answers
88 answers
84 answers
72 answers
68 answers
41 answers
36 answers
36 answers
35 answers
32 answers
30 answers
30 answers
26 answers
23 answers
22 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1E1E1M3S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing TEEMS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TEEMS:

22% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
13% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
8% chance
Suggested:
SLAIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.2%
CAROL 5.92 bits
13.4%
RAILE 5.28 bits
8.0%
SLAIN 4.98 bits
7.4%
LOATH 4.75 bits
4.5%
SPAER 4.67 bits
4.5%
STAIR 4.52 bits
3.7%
MOLAR 4.94 bits
3.5%
CLARY 5.00 bits
3.0%
RAINY 4.78 bits
2.9%
RAILE 4.78 bits

Research on TEEMS

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

Optimal play

Opening with TEEMS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,370 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.87 guesses at best and is rank #3,395 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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 TEEMZ.

Rhymes with SEEMS TEAMS BEAMS SEAMS DEEMS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, TEEMS is a kind of buzz or crowd.

Synonyms stream pour SWARM

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TEEMS 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.

In a sentence

My mind always teems with ideas.
© tatoeba.org contributor LoverofEnglish (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The water tank teems with mosquito larvae.
© tatoeba.org contributor Dejo (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).