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

SALIC

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /seɪlɪk//sælɪk/

Adjective

Synonym of Salian, particularly in reference to the Salic law.

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 SALIC performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SALIC 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 84.9% of games, misses completely in 15.1%, and leaves about 121 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #435 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.58 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 SALIC 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.

5.15 Entropy (bits)
121 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 90% of evaluated openers
0.80 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SALIC 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.

3.58 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#435 Rank among openers
Opening with SALIC left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.58 average. It ranks #435 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
59
3 guesses
1,061
4 guesses
1,055
5 guesses
164
6 guesses
14
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:
AILS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
36%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

SALIC can come back 107 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

359 answers
185 answers
167 answers
117 answers
117 answers
104 answers
104 answers
101 answers
84 answers
64 answers
57 answers
54 answers
47 answers
45 answers
41 answers
38 answers
37 answers
35 answers
34 answers
32 answers
30 answers
27 answers
24 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1A1L1I1C3
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing SALIC

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SALIC:

15% chance
Suggested:
TONER
8% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
7% chance
Suggested:
TRODE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.1%
TONER 6.06 bits
7.8%
TRONE 5.43 bits
7.0%
TRODE 5.62 bits
4.9%
ROUET 5.05 bits
4.9%
TONER 4.76 bits
4.4%
ALATE 4.58 bits
4.4%
TONER 5.15 bits
4.3%
TRONE 5.39 bits
3.5%
RUOTE 5.30 bits
2.7%
PEART 4.50 bits

Research on SALIC

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

Optimal play

Opening with SALIC, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.63 guesses and ranks #995 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.75 guesses at best and is rank #362 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.58, at or below the proven-optimal 3.63, 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 SAHLIHK. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SALIC 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), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).