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

SIGIL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈsɪd͡ʒɪl//ˈsɪd͡ʒəl/

Noun

A seal, signature or signet.

Noun

An occult or magical sign, image or symbol.

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 SIGIL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SIGIL 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 70.3% of games, misses completely in 29.7%, and leaves about 289 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,124 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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 SIGIL 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.

4.11 Entropy (bits)
289 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 28% of evaluated openers
1.84 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SIGIL 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#7,124 Rank among openers
Opening with SIGIL left 3 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 3.70 average. It ranks #7,124 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
41
3 guesses
863
4 guesses
1,212
5 guesses
220
6 guesses
15
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:
ILS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
70%
Green tile
36%
All gray
30%

Feedback distribution

SIGIL can come back 74 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

705 answers
255 answers
208 answers
145 answers
124 answers
106 answers
88 answers
82 answers
81 answers
48 answers
39 answers
33 answers
33 answers
30 answers
30 answers
29 answers
29 answers
24 answers
21 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1I1G2I1L1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SIGIL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SIGIL:

30% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
11% chance
Suggested:
COATE
9% chance
Suggested:
PEART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

29.7%
ROATE 6.17 bits
10.7%
COATE 5.36 bits
8.8%
PEART 5.43 bits
6.1%
ROATE 5.55 bits
5.2%
CRATE 5.35 bits
4.5%
DRONE 5.24 bits
3.7%
RONTE 4.65 bits
3.5%
TONER 4.64 bits
3.4%
CATER 5.11 bits
2.0%
HAOLE 4.47 bits

Research on SIGIL

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

Optimal play

Opening with SIGIL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.79 guesses and ranks #10,263 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.94 guesses at best and is rank #5,002 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.79, 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 SIHJUHL. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SIGIL sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).