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

SAINE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 96.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Proper noun

A surname.

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.

Why this solver ranks SAINE highly

This solver ranks SAINE highly because it separates the possible answers well, even though it is not itself a possible answer.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 91.1% of games, misses completely in 8.9%, and leaves about 74 possible answers on average.

In the current bounded six-turn policy, it ranks #67 of 182 evaluated openers; exact misses rank first, then average guesses among wins.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #815 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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 SAINE 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.

5.77 Entropy (bits)
74 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
96.9% Avg ruled out
In the top 1% for first-turn entropy
0.18 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SAINE 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#815 Rank among openers
Opening with SAINE left 2 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 3.59 average. It ranks #815 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
100
3 guesses
962
4 guesses
1,103
5 guesses
167
6 guesses
20
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
3 vowels
Common:
AEINS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
91%
Green tile
50%
All gray
9%

Feedback distribution

SAINE can come back 136 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

211 answers
188 answers
134 answers
98 answers
94 answers
90 answers
85 answers
62 answers
59 answers
54 answers
51 answers
50 answers
48 answers
48 answers
42 answers
40 answers
40 answers
38 answers
37 answers
36 answers
33 answers
31 answers
31 answers
28 answers
28 answers
28 answers
25 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1A1I1N1E1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Strategy after playing SAINE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SAINE:

9% chance
Suggested:
TRULY
8% chance
Suggested:
DETER
6% chance
Suggested:
FLORA

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

8.9%
TRULY 5.43 bits
7.9%
DETER 5.40 bits
5.6%
FLORA 5.06 bits
4.1%
DROIT 4.64 bits
4.0%
REACT 4.65 bits
3.8%
CLARY 4.00 bits
3.6%
ROUET 4.44 bits
2.6%
SHORT 4.15 bits
2.5%
GLARE 3.48 bits
2.3%
OWNER 4.22 bits

Research on SAINE

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

Optimal play

Opening with SAINE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.60 guesses and ranks #175 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 SAINE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.60, 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 SAYN.

Rhymes with TRAIN BRAIN PLANE CHAIN SPAIN

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SAINE sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

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).