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

TERRY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈtɛɹi/

Noun

A type of coarse cotton fabric covered in many small raised loops that is used to make towels, bathrobes and some types of nappy/diaper.

Noun

A terrorist

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 TERRY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TERRY 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 83.4% of games, misses completely in 16.6%, and leaves about 176 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,782 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 TERRY 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.

4.60 Entropy (bits)
176 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 58% of evaluated openers
1.35 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TERRY 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#9,782 Rank among openers
Opening with TERRY left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.76 average. It ranks #9,782 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
53
3 guesses
792
4 guesses
1,203
5 guesses
281
6 guesses
23
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:
ERT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
38%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

TERRY can come back 89 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

393 answers
325 answers
192 answers
181 answers
175 answers
144 answers
116 answers
81 answers
45 answers
37 answers
37 answers
36 answers
34 answers
33 answers
31 answers
30 answers
28 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1E1R1R1Y4
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing TERRY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TERRY:

17% chance
Suggested:
SLAIN
14% chance
Suggested:
SLANE
8% chance
Suggested:
SAINT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.6%
SLAIN 6.15 bits
13.7%
SLANE 5.43 bits
8.1%
SAINT 5.37 bits
7.6%
SADLY 4.27 bits
7.4%
AINEE 4.32 bits
6.1%
ARSON 4.66 bits
4.9%
SLANT 5.09 bits
3.4%
LIANE 4.46 bits
1.9%
COAST 3.92 bits
1.6%
CAROM 4.40 bits

Research on TERRY

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

Optimal play

Opening with TERRY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,623 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 TERRY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it TEHREE.

Rhymes with HARRY MARRY SCARY JERRY PERRY

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, TERRY is a kind of material.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TERRY sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 17 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.

In a sentence

I want to speak to Terry.
© tatoeba.org contributor wolfgangth (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Terry was very pleased with the news.
© tatoeba.org contributor Swift (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).