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

TURNS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /tɝnz//tɜːnz//tɔːnz/

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of turn

Noun

plural of turn

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 TURNS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts TURNS 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 84.2% of games, misses completely in 15.8%, and leaves about 145 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,279 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 TURNS 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.

4.99 Entropy (bits)
145 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 83% of evaluated openers
0.95 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How TURNS 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#1,279 Rank among openers
Opening with TURNS left 4 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 3.61 average. It ranks #1,279 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
61
3 guesses
1,014
4 guesses
1,084
5 guesses
173
6 guesses
18
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
1 vowels
Common:
NRSTU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
28%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

TURNS can come back 106 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

375 answers
292 answers
166 answers
158 answers
142 answers
100 answers
63 answers
60 answers
58 answers
56 answers
53 answers
51 answers
51 answers
44 answers
40 answers
35 answers
31 answers
28 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

T1U1R1N1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing TURNS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing TURNS:

16% chance
Suggested:
CLADE
12% chance
Suggested:
LAIDE
7% chance
Suggested:
SPALE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.8%
CLADE 6.03 bits
12.3%
LAIDE 5.33 bits
7.0%
SPALE 5.67 bits
6.7%
LAIDE 5.26 bits
6.0%
LATHE 5.18 bits
4.2%
SHALE 4.91 bits
2.7%
HAOLE 4.65 bits
2.5%
ARIEL 4.47 bits
2.4%
MAILE 4.16 bits
2.4%
SHAPE 4.72 bits

Research on TURNS

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

Optimal play

Opening with TURNS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,444 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 TURNS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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 TURNZ.

Rhymes with BURNS EARNS FERNS TERNS KERNS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, TURNS is a kind of curve or change.

Synonyms go work number play become bit

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
TURNS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 58 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 (3.7 of 5).

In a sentence

He really turns me on.
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)
She really turns me on.
© tatoeba.org contributor Hybrid (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).