TEMPO
Yes, TEMPO was the Wordle answer on October 23, 2023 (Wordle #856).
As an opener, it rules out about 92.9% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈtɛm.pəʊ//ˈtɛm.poʊ/
- Noun
-
A frequency or rate.
“10 calls per hour isn't a bad start, but we'll need to up the tempo if we want to reach our target of selling insurance policies.”
- Noun
-
A move which is part of one's own plan or strategy and forces, e.g. by means of a check or attacking a piece, the opponent to make a move which is not bad but of no use (the player gains a tempo, the opponent loses a tempo), or equivalently a player achieves the same result in fewer moves by one approach rather than another.
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
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: October 23, 2023 (#856).
See the full page for that puzzle: October 23, 2023 (#856).
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 TEMPO performs as a guess
TEMPO 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 84.0% of games, misses completely in 16.0%, and leaves about 169 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,297 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe TEMPO 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 TEMPO 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
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches TEMPO in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
TEMPO can come back 97 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 TEMPO; 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 TEMPO
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to TEMPO.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing TEMPO:
Research on TEMPO
Game-tree analysis and word research for TEMPO, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with TEMPO, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,675 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.78 guesses at best and is rank #833 of the 7,453 openers that can still 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
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it TEHMPOH.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, TEMPO is a kind of time or rate.
Synonyms pace pacing
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- TEMPO sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 5 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 10, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 30 of 100. Raters found it difficult to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sound (3.8 of 5).
In a sentence
There's only one tempo, and that's the right one.
I like the slow tempo of this song.
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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).