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

TOMES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of tome

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 TOMES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TOMES 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 87.1% of games, misses completely in 12.9%, and leaves about 123 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,617 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.65 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 TOMES 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.

5.08 Entropy (bits)
123 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 87% of evaluated openers
0.87 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TOMES 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.

3.65 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#3,617 Rank among openers
Opening with TOMES solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.65 average. It ranks #3,617 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
70
3 guesses
904
4 guesses
1,182
5 guesses
183
6 guesses
15
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EOST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
87%
Green tile
32%
All gray
13%

Feedback distribution

TOMES can come back 103 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

307 answers
273 answers
143 answers
140 answers
126 answers
111 answers
93 answers
91 answers
90 answers
72 answers
57 answers
52 answers
44 answers
42 answers
42 answers
42 answers
37 answers
35 answers
32 answers
31 answers
28 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1O1M3E1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing TOMES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TOMES:

13% chance
Suggested:
CAIRN
11% chance
Suggested:
LEARE
6% chance
Suggested:
RAINY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.9%
CAIRN 5.93 bits
11.5%
LEARE 5.43 bits
6.0%
RAINY 4.38 bits
5.9%
SHALY 5.07 bits
5.3%
ACORN 5.12 bits
4.7%
HAUNT 4.89 bits
3.9%
CLARY 4.50 bits
3.8%
PEARE 4.68 bits
3.8%
LEARE 4.88 bits
3.0%
SAINT 4.57 bits

Research on TOMES

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

Optimal play

Opening with TOMES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,341 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 #812 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.65, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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

One syllable Say it TOHMZ.

Rhymes with HOMES COMBS DOMES FOAMS ROAMS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, TOMES is a kind of book.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TOMES sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

In a sentence

My father purchased two tomes for me.
© tatoeba.org contributor anzart (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).