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

SERES

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of sere

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

Etymology

From Latin Sērēs, from Ancient Greek Σῆρες (Sêres, “the North Chinese; North China”), from σήρ (sḗr, “silkworm”), possibly from Old Chinese 絲 (*sə, “silk”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SEERZ.

Rhymes with HEARS TIERS SEERS JEERS FIERS

Use SERES in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.2% 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 SERES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SERES 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 75.0% of games, misses completely in 25.0%, and leaves about 235 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,263 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.82 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 SERES 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.

4.32 Entropy (bits)
235 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.2% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SERES 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.

3.82 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#12,263 Rank among openers
Opening with SERES left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.82 average. It ranks #12,263 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
42
3 guesses
725
4 guesses
1,230
5 guesses
329
6 guesses
26

Composition

3/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ERS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
75%
Green tile
43%
All gray
25%

Feedback distribution

SERES can come back 77 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

595 answers
255 answers
219 answers
163 answers
115 answers
101 answers
86 answers
86 answers
77 answers
75 answers
74 answers
45 answers
40 answers
37 answers
28 answers
25 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1E1R1E1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 5 points

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

Strategy after playing SERES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SERES:

25% chance
Suggested:
TALON
11% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
9% chance
Suggested:
ALINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

25.0% →
TALON 5.72 bits
10.7% →
TRAIN 5.23 bits
9.2% →
ALINE 5.39 bits
6.8% →
SLANT 4.60 bits
4.8% →
TOILE 3.51 bits
4.2% →
TRAPE 4.25 bits
3.6% →
LADEN 4.38 bits
3.6% →
DEALT 4.56 bits
3.2% →
WAIST 4.56 bits
3.1% →
PLATE 4.72 bits

Research on SERES

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

Optimal play

Opening with SERES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.82 guesses and ranks #11,592 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 SERES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.82, at or below the proven-optimal 3.82, 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
SERES 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).