A frequency or rate.
A move which is part of one's own plan or strategy and forces, e.g. by means of a check or attacking a piece, the opponent to make a move which is not bad but of no use (the player gains a tempo, the opponent loses a tempo), or equivalently a player achieves the same result in fewer moves by one approach rather than another.
The timing advantage of being on lead, thus being first to initiate a strategy to develop tricks for one's side.
A temporary carport.
“10 calls per hour isn't a bad start, but we'll need to up the tempo if we want to reach our target of selling insurance policies.”
TEMPO is a 5-letter word with 2 vowels (E, O) and 3 consonants (T, M, P). Every letter is distinct, so it rarely punishes a clean opening guess.
It leans on high-frequency letters (T, E, O), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.
Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, E appears in 50% of answers (the 1st most common letter), T appears in 30% of answers (the 4th most common letter), O appears in 30% of answers (the 5th most common letter). 11 other answers share the opening “TE-”, so two purple tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.
Difficulty: 1/5 — very approachable, because its letters are common and no close neighbors compete with it.
One letter away in the answer bank: TEMPT. Each of these turns four tiles purple against TEMPO — the classic endgame squeeze where spending a guess on the differing letter beats burning attempts on hope.
Words like TEMPO are exactly what the daily puzzles throw at you. Warm up in Practice, race the clock in the Daily Challenge, or study the best starting words before your next run. New to the multi-board modes? The mode guides cover every mode.
Definitions adapted from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA). Letter statistics, difficulty ratings, and near-miss analysis are original Wordocious research computed from our curated answer list.
