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

TRESS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /tɹɛs/

Noun

A braid, knot, or curl, of hair; a ringlet.

Noun

A long lock of hair.

Verb

To braid or knot hair.

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 TRESS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TRESS 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 83.0% of games, misses completely in 17.0%, and leaves about 163 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,847 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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 TRESS 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.

4.70 Entropy (bits)
163 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 65% of evaluated openers
1.25 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TRESS 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#8,847 Rank among openers
Opening with TRESS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #8,847 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
47
3 guesses
828
4 guesses
1,198
5 guesses
255
6 guesses
24
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ERST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
28%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

TRESS can come back 80 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

404 answers
293 answers
186 answers
149 answers
142 answers
127 answers
97 answers
81 answers
72 answers
55 answers
54 answers
47 answers
44 answers
39 answers
37 answers
37 answers
31 answers
31 answers
29 answers
22 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
16 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1R1E1S1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 5 points

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

Strategy after playing TRESS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TRESS:

17% chance
Suggested:
COALY
12% chance
Suggested:
ANILE
8% chance
Suggested:
AINEE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.0%
COALY 5.71 bits
12.3%
ANILE 5.41 bits
7.8%
AINEE 4.27 bits
6.3%
CAROL 5.28 bits
6.0%
HAUNT 4.93 bits
5.3%
SNAIL 4.97 bits
4.1%
DRAIN 4.38 bits
3.4%
LAIDE 4.48 bits
3.0%
STAIN 4.14 bits
2.3%
PLANE 4.38 bits

Research on TRESS

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

Optimal play

Opening with TRESS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,127 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

No guaranteed hard-mode solve In hard mode, no strategy that opens with TRESS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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 TREHS.

Rhymes with GUESS PRESS DRESS BLESS CHESS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, TRESS is a kind of hairstyle.

Synonyms TWIST BRAID

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TRESS 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).