Possible answer Not used yet C tier for first-turn info

SEWER

SEWER is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 91.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈs(j)uːə//ˈsuɚ//ˈsəʊə/

Noun

A pipe or channel, or system of pipes or channels, used to remove human waste and to provide drainage.

“There was a blockage in the sewer after an item of clothing was flushed down the toilet.”

Verb

To provide (a place) with a system of sewers.

Noun

One who sews.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

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 SEWER performs as a guess

SEWER is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 76.9% of games, misses completely in 23.1%, and leaves about 207 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,720 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 SEWER 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.

4.56 Entropy (bits)
207 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
91.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 56% of evaluated openers
1.39 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SEWER 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
100% Solved within six
0.73 Spread of game lengths
#9,720 Rank among openers
Opening with SEWER solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.73 means those games clustered within about 0.73 of a guess of the 3.76 average. It ranks #9,720 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
788
4 guesses
1,197
5 guesses
292
6 guesses
19
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
2 vowels
Common:
ERS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
77%
Green tile
39%
All gray
23%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S I L E D
P E R C H
S E V E R
S E W E R

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SEWER in 5 guesses. See the trap-family guide for similar endgames.

Feedback distribution

SEWER can come back 96 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

549 answers
246 answers
200 answers
159 answers
109 answers
99 answers
91 answers
81 answers
74 answers
71 answers
50 answers
47 answers
46 answers
40 answers
37 answers
37 answers
33 answers
24 answers
21 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1E1W4E1R1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SEWER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SEWER:

23% chance
Suggested:
TALON
10% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
8% chance
Suggested:
ALINE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

23.1%
TALON 5.71 bits
10.4%
TRAIN 5.08 bits
8.4%
ALINE 5.38 bits
6.7%
SLANT 4.63 bits
4.6%
COATE 4.43 bits
4.2%
OASIS 4.78 bits
3.8%
TOILE 3.38 bits
3.4%
DEALT 4.63 bits
3.1%
ALIEN 4.39 bits
3.0%
PLATE 4.74 bits

Research on SEWER

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

Optimal play

Opening with SEWER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,454 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 SEWER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

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

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

Rhymes with FEWER NEWER TRUER DEWAR BLUER

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SEWER is a kind of drain or misfortune.

Synonyms toilet gutter

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SEWER sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 81 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.

In a sentence

The sewer ran under the road.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (CC BY 2.0 FR)
This place smells like a sewer.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0).