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

TOMBS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of tomb

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of tomb

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it TOOMZ.

Rhymes with ROOMS FUMES LOOMS BOOMS ZOOMS

Related meanings

Synonyms GRAVE

In a sentence

Pyramids are not tombs; no mummy has ever been found inside the pyramids.
© tatoeba.org contributor maaster (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The workers who built the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs received paid sick leave.
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use TOMBS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 89.8% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How TOMBS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TOMBS 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 74.2% of games, misses completely in 25.8%, and leaves about 243 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,135 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.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.

First-turn measures

All four describe TOMBS 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.

4.29 Entropy (bits)
243 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TOMBS 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.66 Spread of game lengths
#4,135 Rank among openers
Opening with TOMBS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.66 means those games clustered within about 0.66 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,135 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
915
4 guesses
1,207
5 guesses
174
6 guesses
11

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
OST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
22%
All gray
26%

Feedback distribution

TOMBS can come back 79 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

615 answers
251 answers
202 answers
162 answers
125 answers
122 answers
105 answers
90 answers
84 answers
53 answers
48 answers
34 answers
29 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1O1M3B3S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing TOMBS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TOMBS:

26% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
11% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
8% chance
Suggested:
CARLE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.8% →
RAILE 6.28 bits
10.5% →
RAILE 5.49 bits
8.5% →
CARLE 5.47 bits
6.8% →
CRANE 5.38 bits
5.2% →
RAILE 4.80 bits
5.1% →
CARLE 4.73 bits
4.4% →
RAILE 5.53 bits
3.8% →
CARLE 5.47 bits
3.5% →
RAINE 5.19 bits
2.2% →
PLORE 3.97 bits

Research on TOMBS

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

Optimal play

Opening with TOMBS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,572 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,675 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 3.71, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TOMBS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.3 of 5).

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).