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

SECTS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /sɛkts//sɛks/

Noun

plural of sect

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 SECTS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SECTS 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 80.0% of games, misses completely in 20.0%, and leaves about 205 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,790 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 SECTS 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.

4.40 Entropy (bits)
205 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 45% of evaluated openers
1.55 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SECTS 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.79% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#9,790 Rank among openers
Opening with SECTS left 5 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.76 average. It ranks #9,790 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
38
3 guesses
783
4 guesses
1,264
5 guesses
239
6 guesses
25
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
EST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
33%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

SECTS can come back 70 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

475 answers
376 answers
164 answers
154 answers
122 answers
106 answers
100 answers
77 answers
69 answers
63 answers
57 answers
52 answers
51 answers
42 answers
36 answers
31 answers
30 answers
30 answers
27 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1E1C3T1S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SECTS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SECTS:

20% chance
Suggested:
ROANY
16% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
7% chance
Suggested:
TALON

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.0%
ROANY 5.75 bits
15.8%
RAILE 5.35 bits
6.9%
TALON 5.20 bits
6.5%
CAIRN 5.33 bits
5.1%
LEARE 4.66 bits
4.5%
RAINY 4.81 bits
4.2%
TALER 4.80 bits
3.2%
PAIRE 4.54 bits
2.9%
ARENE 4.65 bits
2.7%
RAINY 4.02 bits

Research on SECTS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SECTS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,757 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.93 guesses at best and is rank #4,843 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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 SEHKTS.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SECTS is a kind of faith or camp.

Synonyms faction

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SECTS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.2 of 5).

In a sentence

There are many sects in Hinduism.
© tatoeba.org contributor nonong (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Many sects have initiation rituals for new members.
© tatoeba.org contributor darinmex (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).