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

TONKA

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A flavoring or fragrance used in foodstuffs and perfumes, derived from the tonka bean which contains coumarin.

Alternative forms: tonca, tonqua, tonquin

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 TONKA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TONKA 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 82.8% of games, misses completely in 17.2%, and leaves about 171 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,146 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 TONKA 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.

4.72 Entropy (bits)
171 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 66% of evaluated openers
1.23 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TONKA 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#5,146 Rank among openers
Opening with TONKA left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.67 average. It ranks #5,146 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
54
3 guesses
895
4 guesses
1,188
5 guesses
200
6 guesses
16
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:
ANOT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
26%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

TONKA can come back 96 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

408 answers
350 answers
159 answers
142 answers
131 answers
122 answers
95 answers
66 answers
56 answers
54 answers
54 answers
51 answers
48 answers
39 answers
37 answers
35 answers
31 answers
30 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
26 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1O1N1K5A1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing TONKA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TONKA:

17% chance
Suggested:
SILER
15% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
7% chance
Suggested:
SHIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.2%
SILER 5.98 bits
14.7%
CARLE 5.53 bits
6.7%
SHIER 5.33 bits
6.0%
CARSE 4.86 bits
5.5%
SLYER 4.51 bits
5.1%
PLORE 5.00 bits
4.0%
SLIER 5.02 bits
2.8%
SLIER 4.86 bits
2.4%
SHIRE 4.41 bits
2.3%
SLICE 4.28 bits

Research on TONKA

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

Optimal play

Opening with TONKA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #4,893 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 #1,942 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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 TAHNGKUH.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TONKA 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).