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

SAUGH

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A small burn or creek.

Noun

willow

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 SAUGH performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SAUGH 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 78.3% of games, misses completely in 21.7%, and leaves about 197 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,732 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 SAUGH 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.

4.64 Entropy (bits)
197 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 61% of evaluated openers
1.30 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SAUGH 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#5,732 Rank among openers
Opening with SAUGH solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.68 average. It ranks #5,732 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
53
3 guesses
907
4 guesses
1,151
5 guesses
223
6 guesses
20
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:
ASU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
39%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

SAUGH can come back 94 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

515 answers
305 answers
167 answers
144 answers
132 answers
78 answers
77 answers
75 answers
74 answers
61 answers
52 answers
51 answers
38 answers
35 answers
32 answers
31 answers
30 answers
28 answers
28 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1A1U1G2H4
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing SAUGH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SAUGH:

22% chance
Suggested:
LINER
13% chance
Suggested:
ALERT
7% chance
Suggested:
RONTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.7%
LINER 5.86 bits
12.8%
ALERT 5.49 bits
7.0%
RONTE 4.80 bits
6.1%
TRIPE 5.11 bits
5.6%
PLIER 4.95 bits
3.3%
TRONE 5.21 bits
3.2%
TRICE 5.24 bits
3.2%
LEANT 4.48 bits
3.1%
TRONE 5.13 bits
2.6%
TROPE 4.68 bits

Research on SAUGH

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

Optimal play

Opening with SAUGH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #6,136 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 SAUGH can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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

One syllable Say it SAW. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.