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

SAYER

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

As an opener, it rules out about 96.5% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

One who says; one who makes announcements; a crier.

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 SAYER performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SAYER 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 90.9% of games, misses completely in 9.1%, and leaves about 84 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,413 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 SAYER 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.

5.48 Entropy (bits)
84 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
96.5% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 98% of evaluated openers
0.47 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SAYER 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#4,413 Rank among openers
Opening with SAYER left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.71 means those games clustered within about 0.71 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,413 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
75
3 guesses
883
4 guesses
1,180
5 guesses
190
6 guesses
22
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:
AERS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
91%
Green tile
41%
All gray
9%

Feedback distribution

SAYER can come back 112 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

216 answers
179 answers
125 answers
119 answers
115 answers
105 answers
91 answers
87 answers
85 answers
82 answers
72 answers
70 answers
60 answers
52 answers
45 answers
40 answers
37 answers
34 answers
34 answers
31 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
26 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1A1Y4E1R1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing SAYER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SAYER:

9% chance
Suggested:
COUNT
8% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
5% chance
Suggested:
PLAIT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

9.1%
COUNT 5.98 bits
7.5%
TOILE 5.31 bits
5.3%
PLAIT 4.95 bits
5.0%
DIMLY 4.32 bits
4.8%
PRINT 4.90 bits
4.4%
DEALT 4.72 bits
3.8%
POIRE 4.19 bits
3.7%
STINK 4.45 bits
3.6%
TOILE 3.40 bits
3.5%
TRAIN 4.09 bits

Research on SAYER

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

Optimal play

Opening with SAYER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,224 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 SAYER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66; proven optimal play reaches 3.64. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it SAYUR.

Rhymes with MAYOR LAYER BAYER PAYER GEYER

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SAYER 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); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).