SAUCE
SAUCE is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /sɔːs//soːs//sɔs/
- Noun
-
A liquid (often thickened) condiment or accompaniment to food.
“apple sauce; mint sauce”
- Noun
-
Tomato sauce (similar to US tomato ketchup), as in
- Verb
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To add sauce to; to season.
- Verb
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To cause to relish anything, as if with a sauce; to tickle or gratify, as the palate; to please; to stimulate.
Alternative forms: sawce
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English sauce, from Old French sause, from Vulgar Latin *salsa, noun use of the feminine of Latin salsus (“salted”), past participle of saliō (“to salt”), from sal. Doublet of salsa. For the meaning development compare Ancient Greek ἥδυσμα (hḗdusma) ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *swéh₂dus (whence also English sweet).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it SAWS.
Rhymes with CROSS GLOSS DROSS PROSS
In a sentence
This is a light sauce.
Try it with this sauce.
Use SAUCE in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 95.9% of possible answers.
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
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
No completed appearanceNo 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.
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See what the public sample says →SAUCE in Connections
4 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #741
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SAUCE appeared in APPLE PRODUCTS (blue group).
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· Puzzle #676
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SAUCE appeared in COMPONENTS OF A PIZZA (green group).
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· Puzzle #488
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SAUCE appeared in BRASHNESS (purple group).
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· Puzzle #197
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SAUCE appeared in SECRET ___ (purple group).
How SAUCE performs as a guess
SAUCE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,385 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 89.4% of games, misses completely in 10.6%, and leaves about 99 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,381 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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 SAUCE 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 SAUCE 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
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches SAUCE in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SAUCE can come back 122 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 SAUCE; 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 SAUCE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SAUCE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SAUCE:
Research on SAUCE
Game-tree analysis and word research for SAUCE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SAUCE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,495 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 SAUCE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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
- SAUCE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 20 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A2); among the first words English learners study.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 87 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with taste (4.3 of 5).
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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).