TELLS
TELLS is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
As an opener, it rules out about 92.8% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /tɛlz/
- Verb
-
third-person singular simple present indicative of tell
- Noun
-
plural of tell
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 →How TELLS performs as a guess
Wordle accepts TELLS 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 82.4% of games, misses completely in 17.6%, and leaves about 172 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,614 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe TELLS 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 TELLS 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
TELLS can come back 84 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 TELLS; 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 TELLS
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to TELLS.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing TELLS:
Research on TELLS
Game-tree analysis and word research for TELLS, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with TELLS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,540 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 TELLS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.76, 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, TELLS is a kind of express or inform.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- TELLS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 60 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 sound (2.8 of 5).
In a sentence
Do as he tells you.
Do what he tells you.
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).