5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess B tier for first-turn info

TONIC

Yes, TONIC was the Wordle answer on July 19, 2023 (Wordle #760).

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈtɒnɪk//ˈtɑ.nɪk/

Adjective

Pertaining to tension, especially of the muscles.

Adjective

Restorative; curative; or invigorating.

“The arrival of the new members had a tonic effect on the team.”

Noun

A substance with medicinal properties intended to restore or invigorate.

“We used to brew a tonic from a particular kind of root.”

Noun

Tonic water.

Alternative forms: tonick

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

How it sounds

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

Rhymes with SONIC IONIC CONIC

Related meanings

Synonyms pop FRESH soda refreshing keynote BRISK

Opposites debilitating

In a sentence

A vodka and tonic, please.
© tatoeba.org contributor araneo (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I want a gin and tonic.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use TONIC in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.3% of possible answers.

Open Solver with TONIC Open Word Finder

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

Used once

Past Wordle answer: July 19, 2023 (#760).

See the full page for that puzzle: July 19, 2023 (#760).

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

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TONIC in Connections

1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How TONIC performs as a guess

TONIC is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 80.1% of games, misses completely in 19.9%, and leaves about 159 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #726 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

T___C T in the 1st position and C in the 5th position T__I_ T in the 1st position and I in the 4th position _O__C O in the 2nd position and C in the 5th position TO_IC T in the 1st position, O in the 2nd position, I in the 4th position, and C in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in TONIC.

First-turn measures

All four describe TONIC 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.

4.92 Entropy (bits)
159 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TONIC 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#726 Rank among openers
Opening with TONIC left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.59 average. It ranks #726 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
54
3 guesses
1,029
4 guesses
1,105
5 guesses
147
6 guesses
16

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
INOT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
28%
All gray
20%

Example solver route

R O A T E
C U M I N
T O N I C

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches TONIC in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

TONIC can come back 102 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

475 answers
177 answers
170 answers
137 answers
124 answers
123 answers
103 answers
67 answers
59 answers
57 answers
55 answers
50 answers
46 answers
43 answers
42 answers
40 answers
37 answers
34 answers
32 answers
31 answers
25 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1O1N1I1C3
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Try next

SERAL SIDLE CARLE BLARE DROLE SAKER

Strategy after playing TONIC

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TONIC:

20% chance
Suggested:
SERAL
7% chance
Suggested:
SERAL
7% chance
Suggested:
SIDLE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.9% →
SERAL 6.20 bits
7.4% →
SERAL 5.73 bits
7.1% →
SIDLE 5.35 bits
5.7% →
CARLE 5.64 bits
5.2% →
BLARE 5.08 bits
5.2% →
DROLE 4.64 bits
4.3% →
SAKER 5.09 bits
2.8% →
SHIRE 4.65 bits
2.5% →
SARGE 4.35 bits
2.4% →
SHULE 4.35 bits

Research on TONIC

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

Optimal play

Opening with TONIC, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,352 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 #957 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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
TONIC 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 taste (3.4 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).