SAUCE
SAUCE is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.
As an opener, it rules out about 95.9% of possible answers.
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
-
To add sauce to; to season.
- Verb
-
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.
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
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.
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Wordle Observatory · optional
Played this Wordle?
Add your result to the public totals · about 20 seconds
Add your result and a quick difficulty rating to help explain how this puzzle played.
See the public dataThank you. Your result now helps describe this puzzle.
See what the public sample says →How SAUCE performs as a guess
SAUCE is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 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 98 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 121 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.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, SAUCE is a kind of seasoning or do.
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).
In a sentence
This is a light sauce.
Try it with this sauce.
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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).