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

SARKY

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /sɑɹkiː//sɑːkiː/

Adjective

Synonym of sarcastic.

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

Etymology

Clipping of sarcastic + -y.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use SARKY in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 93.0% 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 SARKY performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SARKY 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 82.0% of games, misses completely in 18.0%, and leaves about 167 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,256 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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 SARKY 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.

4.76 Entropy (bits)
167 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.0% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SARKY 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.

3.69 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#6,256 Rank among openers
Opening with SARKY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.69 average. It ranks #6,256 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
899
4 guesses
1,177
5 guesses
217
6 guesses
18

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ARS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
43%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

SARKY can come back 92 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

429 answers
277 answers
207 answers
138 answers
129 answers
129 answers
113 answers
75 answers
58 answers
52 answers
44 answers
42 answers
38 answers
36 answers
34 answers
32 answers
27 answers
24 answers
24 answers
24 answers
24 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1A1R1K5Y4
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing SARKY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SARKY:

18% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
12% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
9% chance
Suggested:
ALATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.0% →
TOILE 6.21 bits
11.6% →
TOILE 5.20 bits
8.7% →
ALATE 5.43 bits
5.8% →
TRADE 4.69 bits
5.4% →
MOILE 4.32 bits
5.4% →
TOILE 5.09 bits
4.7% →
CLINE 4.73 bits
3.1% →
TOILE 4.74 bits
2.4% →
THALE 4.48 bits
2.2% →
CONTE 4.59 bits

Research on SARKY

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

Optimal play

Opening with SARKY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,702 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 SARKY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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
SARKY 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).