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

SABRA

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

Alternative spelling of Sabra.

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

Etymology

Borrowed from Hebrew צַבָּר (tsabár, “prickly pear cactus”), from Arabic صَبَّار (ṣabbār, “cactus”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

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

Use SABRA in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.8% 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 SABRA performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SABRA 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 77.5% of games, misses completely in 22.5%, and leaves about 219 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,113 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 SABRA 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.

4.37 Entropy (bits)
219 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SABRA 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
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#9,113 Rank among openers
Opening with SABRA 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 3.74 average. It ranks #9,113 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
41
3 guesses
819
4 guesses
1,211
5 guesses
269
6 guesses
13

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ARS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
35%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

SABRA can come back 78 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

536 answers
320 answers
189 answers
181 answers
122 answers
105 answers
94 answers
77 answers
76 answers
65 answers
51 answers
45 answers
37 answers
35 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1A1B3R1A1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SABRA

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SABRA:

22% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
13% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
8% chance
Suggested:
CLONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.5% →
TOILE 6.08 bits
13.4% →
TOILE 5.17 bits
7.9% →
CLONE 5.55 bits
7.6% →
TOILE 5.12 bits
5.1% →
CLINE 4.65 bits
4.4% →
CLADE 4.54 bits
3.9% →
HOISE 5.01 bits
3.2% →
TOILE 5.07 bits
3.2% →
THALE 4.38 bits
2.7% →
PORTE 3.97 bits

Research on SABRA

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

Optimal play

Opening with SABRA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #9,038 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.92 guesses at best and is rank #4,612 of the 7,453 openers that can still 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SABRA 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).