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

TRIES

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /tɹaɪz/

Noun

plural of try

Noun

plural of trie

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of try

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it TRYZ.

Rhymes with PRIZE FLIES ARISE CRIES SKIES

Related meanings

Synonyms hear test JUDGE effort attempt PROVE

In a sentence

You can have three tries.
© tatoeba.org contributor eeyinn (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He can do that if he tries.
© tatoeba.org contributor CH (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use TRIES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 96.5% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How TRIES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TRIES 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 84 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #405 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.58 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 TRIES 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.

5.62 Entropy (bits)
84 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
96.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TRIES 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.

3.58 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#405 Rank among openers
Opening with TRIES left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.58 average. It ranks #405 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
88
3 guesses
1,019
4 guesses
1,057
5 guesses
171
6 guesses
17

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EIRST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
89%
Green tile
37%
All gray
11%

Feedback distribution

TRIES can come back 127 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

260 answers
186 answers
121 answers
111 answers
98 answers
81 answers
79 answers
78 answers
74 answers
66 answers
65 answers
59 answers
58 answers
50 answers
48 answers
43 answers
41 answers
38 answers
34 answers
33 answers
29 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
23 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1R1I1E1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 5 points

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

Strategy after playing TRIES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TRIES:

11% chance
Suggested:
COALY
8% chance
Suggested:
ANGLE
5% chance
Suggested:
COALY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

10.9% →
COALY 5.68 bits
7.8% →
ANGLE 5.35 bits
5.1% →
COALY 4.87 bits
4.7% →
LORRY 5.01 bits
4.1% →
PLAIN 4.64 bits
3.4% →
ROANY 3.30 bits
3.3% →
DEARY 4.39 bits
3.3% →
CLOUT 4.95 bits
3.1% →
SPALE 4.58 bits
2.8% →
CROWD 4.09 bits

Research on TRIES

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

Optimal play

Opening with TRIES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.60 guesses and ranks #136 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 TRIES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.58, at or below the proven-optimal 3.60, 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
TRIES sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 34 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.5 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).