SAKES
SAKES is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
As an opener, it rules out about 91.5% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /seɪks//sɑːkis/
- Noun
-
plural of sake (“benefit”)
“For all our sakes, please let us pass.”
- Noun
-
plural of sake, referring to a Japanese rice wine
“The sailor tried several different sakes before he passed out.”
Alternative forms: sakés, sakis
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
Not used yetNo past answer date found.
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How SAKES performs as a guess
Wordle accepts SAKES 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 80.6% of games, misses completely in 19.4%, and leaves about 202 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,267 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.86 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe SAKES 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How SAKES 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Feedback distribution
SAKES can come back 62 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for SAKES; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing SAKES
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SAKES.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SAKES:
Research on SAKES
Game-tree analysis and word research for SAKES, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SAKES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,349 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 SAKES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.86; proven optimal play reaches 3.81. 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, SAKES is a kind of benefit or design.
Synonyms interest
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- SAKES 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).