Possible answer Not used yet C tier for first-turn info

TENET

TENET is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 89.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈtɛnɪt//ˈtɛnət/

Noun

An opinion, belief, or principle that is held as absolute truth by someone or especially an organization.

Alternative forms: tenant

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

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 TENET performs as a guess

TENET 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 72.9% of games, misses completely in 27.1%, and leaves about 254 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,260 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.79 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 TENET 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.

4.33 Entropy (bits)
254 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
89.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 41% of evaluated openers
1.61 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TENET 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.

3.79 Avg guesses
99.79% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#11,260 Rank among openers
Opening with TENET left 5 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.79 average. It ranks #11,260 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
727
4 guesses
1,261
5 guesses
290
6 guesses
22
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

3/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ENT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
40%
All gray
27%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L E E T
B E G E T
T E N E T

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches TENET in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

TENET can come back 83 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

644 answers
282 answers
179 answers
134 answers
123 answers
104 answers
82 answers
73 answers
63 answers
58 answers
51 answers
37 answers
36 answers
35 answers
33 answers
32 answers
23 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1E1N1E1T1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Strategy after playing TENET

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TENET:

27% chance
Suggested:
SORAL
12% chance
Suggested:
SORAL
8% chance
Suggested:
SOLAR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.1%
SORAL 5.87 bits
11.9%
SORAL 5.29 bits
7.5%
SOLAR 4.82 bits
5.6%
SOLAR 4.44 bits
5.2%
SORAL 5.02 bits
4.4%
SORAL 5.03 bits
3.5%
CLARY 5.10 bits
3.1%
SAUCY 4.26 bits
2.7%
AROSE 4.41 bits
2.4%
STAIR 4.26 bits

Research on TENET

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

Optimal play

Opening with TENET, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,244 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 TENET can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.79, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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 TEHNUHT.

Rhymes with BENET

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, TENET is a kind of gospel.

Synonyms DOGMA

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TENET sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.

In a sentence

The oneness of God is the most central tenet in Islam.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (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).