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

TONEY

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

As an opener, it rules out about 95.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

Alternative spelling of tony.

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 TONEY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TONEY 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 89.1% of games, misses completely in 10.9%, and leaves about 114 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,928 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 TONEY 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.

5.20 Entropy (bits)
114 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 92% of evaluated openers
0.74 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TONEY 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.

3.64 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#2,928 Rank among openers
Opening with TONEY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.64 average. It ranks #2,928 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
74
3 guesses
928
4 guesses
1,145
5 guesses
192
6 guesses
14
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:
ENOT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
43%
All gray
11%

Feedback distribution

TONEY can come back 116 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

291 answers
259 answers
137 answers
130 answers
126 answers
116 answers
116 answers
89 answers
57 answers
56 answers
56 answers
52 answers
47 answers
45 answers
41 answers
38 answers
38 answers
38 answers
33 answers
31 answers
30 answers
30 answers
30 answers
28 answers
28 answers
25 answers
23 answers
21 answers
17 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1O1N1E1Y4
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing TONEY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TONEY:

12% chance
Suggested:
SEARE
11% chance
Suggested:
CLASP
6% chance
Suggested:
PALSY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

12.3%
SEARE 5.32 bits
10.9%
CLASP 5.85 bits
5.8%
PALSY 4.34 bits
5.5%
RAILE 4.14 bits
5.3%
CAROL 5.12 bits
4.9%
SHIRT 5.22 bits
4.9%
SLART 5.04 bits
3.7%
SLANG 4.80 bits
2.4%
ANISE 4.59 bits
2.4%
BRISE 4.14 bits

Research on TONEY

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

Optimal play

Opening with TONEY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.63 guesses and ranks #862 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.82 guesses at best and is rank #2,041 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.64; proven optimal play reaches 3.63. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 TOHNEE.

Rhymes with PHONY STONY CONEY CRONY BONEY

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TONEY 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).