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

TEFFS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of teff

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 TEFFS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TEFFS 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 75.6% of games, misses completely in 24.4%, and leaves about 276 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,797 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.83 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 TEFFS 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.

3.85 Entropy (bits)
276 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 17% of evaluated openers
2.09 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TEFFS 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.

3.83 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#12,797 Rank among openers
Opening with TEFFS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.83 average. It ranks #12,797 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
37
3 guesses
642
4 guesses
1,361
5 guesses
296
6 guesses
16
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
1 vowels
Common:
EST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
20%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

TEFFS can come back 61 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

579 answers
412 answers
205 answers
162 answers
148 answers
138 answers
108 answers
99 answers
78 answers
58 answers
56 answers
45 answers
36 answers
33 answers
25 answers
23 answers
19 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1E1F4F4S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing TEFFS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TEFFS:

24% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
17% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
9% chance
Suggested:
SLAIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.4%
CAROL 5.94 bits
17.4%
RAILE 5.26 bits
8.6%
SLAIN 5.00 bits
6.8%
HABIT 4.89 bits
6.2%
PAIRE 4.88 bits
5.8%
CARLE 4.60 bits
4.5%
STAIR 4.54 bits
4.2%
LAREE 4.76 bits
3.3%
ROANY 4.57 bits
2.4%
STEAL 3.91 bits

Research on TEFFS

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

Optimal play

Opening with TEFFS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.87 guesses and ranks #13,302 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.00 guesses at best and is rank #6,253 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.83, at or below the proven-optimal 3.87, 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 TEHFS. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, TEFFS is a kind of grass.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0).