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

SALIX

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈseɪlɪks//ˈsælɪks/

Noun

Any member of the genus Salix; a willow.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

From Salix, the genus name. Doublet of sallow.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use SALIX in a puzzle

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

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How SALIX performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SALIX 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 80.9% of games, misses completely in 19.1%, and leaves about 177 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #8,324 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.73 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 SALIX 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.

4.56 Entropy (bits)
177 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SALIX 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.

3.73 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#8,324 Rank among openers
Opening with SALIX solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.73 average. It ranks #8,324 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
47
3 guesses
835
4 guesses
1,203
5 guesses
252
6 guesses
17

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AILS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
36%
All gray
19%

Feedback distribution

SALIX can come back 85 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

456 answers
227 answers
218 answers
159 answers
146 answers
126 answers
124 answers
99 answers
78 answers
65 answers
54 answers
48 answers
43 answers
42 answers
39 answers
34 answers
32 answers
26 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1A1L1I1X8
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing SALIX

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SALIX:

19% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
10% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
9% chance
Suggested:
CRATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.1% →
TRONE 6.04 bits
9.5% →
TRONE 5.40 bits
9.1% →
CRATE 5.59 bits
6.7% →
TONER 4.81 bits
6.1% →
ROUET 5.03 bits
5.3% →
TONER 5.16 bits
5.2% →
REACT 4.65 bits
4.2% →
RUOTE 5.28 bits
3.3% →
PEART 4.47 bits
2.7% →
CRINE 3.95 bits

Research on SALIX

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

Optimal play

Opening with SALIX, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,860 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.90 guesses at best and is rank #4,087 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.73, at or below the proven-optimal 3.76, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SALIX 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).