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

SCADS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of scad

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SKADZ.

Rhymes with GRADS

Related meanings

Synonyms lots tons scores LOADS dozens PILES

In a sentence

Scads of online daters constantly check their desirability.
© tatoeba.org contributor papabear (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Gina's sheer coldness attracted scads of men with low self-esteem.
© tatoeba.org contributor papabear (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use SCADS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 88.5% 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 SCADS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SCADS 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 73.8% of games, misses completely in 26.2%, and leaves about 273 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,499 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 SCADS 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.

4.00 Entropy (bits)
273 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.5% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SCADS 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#10,499 Rank among openers
Opening with SCADS left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.77 average. It ranks #10,499 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
33
3 guesses
752
4 guesses
1,298
5 guesses
255
6 guesses
14

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
AS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
30%
All gray
26%

Feedback distribution

SCADS can come back 62 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

625 answers
338 answers
194 answers
186 answers
161 answers
110 answers
108 answers
84 answers
60 answers
54 answers
48 answers
44 answers
39 answers
35 answers
27 answers
25 answers
21 answers
16 answers
15 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1C3A1D2S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing SCADS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SCADS:

26% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
14% chance
Suggested:
TALER
8% chance
Suggested:
CRINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.2% →
TOILE 6.06 bits
14.2% →
TALER 5.58 bits
8.1% →
CRINE 5.31 bits
7.8% →
TRINE 5.11 bits
6.8% →
DINER 5.47 bits
4.6% →
RUOTE 5.50 bits
4.5% →
TRINE 4.97 bits
3.5% →
CARET 4.52 bits
2.5% →
MOIRE 4.53 bits
2.3% →
LEANT 3.83 bits

Research on SCADS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SCADS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,214 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 SCADS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.81, 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
SCADS 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); 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).