Possible answer Not used yet B tier for first-turn info

TUMOR

TUMOR is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /tjuː.mə//tuː.məɹ//tɪʊ̯.məɾ/

Noun

An abnormal growth; differential diagnosis includes abscess, metaplasia, and neoplasia.

“a benign tumor”

Alternative forms: tumour

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

Etymology

From Middle English tumour, from Old French tumour, from Latin tumor (“swelling”), from tumeō (“bulge, swell”, verb), from Proto-Italic *tumēō, from Proto-Indo-European *tewh₂- (“to swell”). Related to English thumb.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

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

Rhymes with HUMOR RUMOR

Related meanings

Synonyms tumour

In a sentence

I have a brain tumor.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I had a brain tumor.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use TUMOR in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 92.9% 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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

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 TUMOR performs as a guess

TUMOR 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 80.4% of games, misses completely in 19.6%, and leaves about 169 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,087 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 TUMOR 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.

4.84 Entropy (bits)
169 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
92.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TUMOR 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#2,087 Rank among openers
Opening with TUMOR 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 3.62 average. It ranks #2,087 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
973
4 guesses
1,109
5 guesses
192
6 guesses
12

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ORTU

Feedback chances

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

Example solver route

R O A T E
S H U N T
T U M O R

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches TUMOR in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

TUMOR can come back 108 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

467 answers
236 answers
200 answers
175 answers
97 answers
85 answers
76 answers
75 answers
75 answers
64 answers
52 answers
48 answers
46 answers
40 answers
31 answers
31 answers
31 answers
31 answers
30 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1U1M3O1R1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing TUMOR

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TUMOR:

20% chance
Suggested:
SLANE
10% chance
Suggested:
SLADE
8% chance
Suggested:
SALET

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.6% →
SLANE 6.28 bits
9.9% →
SLADE 5.20 bits
8.4% →
SALET 5.65 bits
7.3% →
SOOLE 5.14 bits
4.1% →
CRANE 4.62 bits
3.6% →
RAINY 3.69 bits
3.2% →
SLICE 5.20 bits
3.1% →
SLANE 5.03 bits
3.1% →
SPILE 4.42 bits
2.7% →
REAST 4.69 bits

Research on TUMOR

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

Optimal play

Opening with TUMOR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #2,972 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 TUMOR can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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
TUMOR sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 9 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Learner level
Appears in intermediate learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level B2); a word learners usually reach after the basics.

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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS.