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

SAGES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈseɪ.d͡ʒɪz/

Noun

plural of sage

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 SAGES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SAGES 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 82.5% of games, misses completely in 17.5%, and leaves about 176 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,805 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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 SAGES 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.

4.51 Entropy (bits)
176 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 53% of evaluated openers
1.43 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SAGES 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#11,805 Rank among openers
Opening with SAGES left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.80 average. It ranks #11,805 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
56
3 guesses
690
4 guesses
1,286
5 guesses
293
6 guesses
25
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AES

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
42%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

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

415 answers
267 answers
217 answers
188 answers
158 answers
143 answers
122 answers
71 answers
64 answers
63 answers
53 answers
52 answers
46 answers
44 answers
37 answers
34 answers
27 answers
27 answers
24 answers
24 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1A1G2E1S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing SAGES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SAGES:

17% chance
Suggested:
COURT
11% chance
Suggested:
TRINE
9% chance
Suggested:
TRAIL

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.5%
COURT 5.79 bits
11.2%
TRINE 5.25 bits
9.1%
TRAIL 5.30 bits
7.9%
OLDER 4.19 bits
6.7%
DEALT 4.85 bits
6.0%
CARAT 4.03 bits
5.1%
STORK 4.21 bits
3.0%
GUILT 4.64 bits
2.7%
STALK 3.73 bits
2.7%
TRIPE 4.28 bits

Research on SAGES

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

Optimal play

Opening with SAGES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,840 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 SAGES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80; proven optimal play reaches 3.78. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 SAYJIHZ.

Rhymes with CAGES RAGES MAGES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SAGES is a kind of depression or drop.

Synonyms flag swag wise

Opposites foolish

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SAGES 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.

In a sentence

Who were the Seven Sages of ancient Greece?
© tatoeba.org contributor carlosalberto (CC BY 2.0 FR)
One fool can easily ruin a thousand sages.
© tatoeba.org contributor AlanF_US (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).