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

SADHU

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.1% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈsɑːduː//ˈsæduː//-djuː/

Noun

An ascetic or practitioner of yoga (yogi) who has given up pursuit of the first three Hindu goals of life: kama (enjoyment), artha (practical objectives) and even dharma (duty).

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 SADHU performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SADHU 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 80.4% of games, misses completely in 19.6%, and leaves about 187 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,840 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 SADHU 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.

4.48 Entropy (bits)
187 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 51% of evaluated openers
1.46 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SADHU 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#5,840 Rank among openers
Opening with SADHU left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,840 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
45
3 guesses
876
4 guesses
1,225
5 guesses
194
6 guesses
13
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
2 vowels
Common:
ASU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
32%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

SADHU can come back 74 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

466 answers
290 answers
183 answers
171 answers
139 answers
122 answers
122 answers
79 answers
72 answers
61 answers
44 answers
42 answers
41 answers
38 answers
36 answers
35 answers
32 answers
32 answers
32 answers
31 answers
24 answers
22 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1A1D2H4U1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing SADHU

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SADHU:

20% chance
Suggested:
NOIRE
12% chance
Suggested:
ALERT
8% chance
Suggested:
CLONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.6%
NOIRE 5.89 bits
12.2%
ALERT 5.50 bits
7.7%
CLONE 5.03 bits
7.2%
TONER 4.84 bits
5.9%
TRIPE 5.13 bits
5.1%
CONTE 5.50 bits
5.1%
DINER 5.42 bits
3.3%
TROPE 5.30 bits
3.0%
PLATE 4.43 bits
2.6%
BRINE 4.87 bits

Research on SADHU

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

Optimal play

Opening with SADHU, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,453 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 SADHU can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it SAHDHOO. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SADHU is a kind of hindu.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SADHU 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), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).