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

SIDES

SIDES 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: /saɪdz/

Noun

plural of side.

Noun

Clipping of side effects.

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of side

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 SIDES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SIDES 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 79.4% of games, misses completely in 20.6%, and leaves about 204 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,515 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 SIDES 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.

4.42 Entropy (bits)
204 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 46% of evaluated openers
1.53 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SIDES 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
99.87% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#10,515 Rank among openers
Opening with SIDES left 3 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 3.77 average. It ranks #10,515 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
46
3 guesses
758
4 guesses
1,254
5 guesses
270
6 guesses
23
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:
EIS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
38%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

SIDES can come back 78 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

489 answers
334 answers
178 answers
177 answers
144 answers
86 answers
82 answers
78 answers
76 answers
69 answers
69 answers
66 answers
48 answers
36 answers
27 answers
27 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1I1D2E1S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Strategy after playing SIDES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SIDES:

21% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
14% chance
Suggested:
LEARE
7% chance
Suggested:
CAIRN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

20.6%
CAROL 5.99 bits
14.1%
LEARE 5.50 bits
7.5%
CAIRN 5.37 bits
7.5%
OATER 4.28 bits
6.1%
ROANY 4.66 bits
3.6%
DROWN 4.87 bits
3.5%
SALTY 3.71 bits
3.3%
TRINE 4.52 bits
3.2%
PARTE 4.57 bits
2.9%
TRASH 4.91 bits

Research on SIDES

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

Optimal play

Opening with SIDES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.76 guesses and ranks #8,764 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 SIDES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77; proven optimal play reaches 3.76. 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

One syllable Say it SYDZ.

Rhymes with RIDES HIDES TIDES FIDES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SIDES is a kind of part or unit.

Synonyms face position english SLOPE incline lateral

Opposites top bottom

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SIDES sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 54 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.0 of 5).

In a sentence

There are two sides to it.
© tatoeba.org contributor megamanenm (CC BY 2.0 FR)
We don't want to take sides.
© 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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).