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

SIGNS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 85.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /saɪnz/

Noun

plural of sign

“The signs beside the road warned of ice.”

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of sign

“She signs her name slowly, but clearly.”

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 SIGNS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SIGNS 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 66.3% of games, misses completely in 33.7%, and leaves about 342 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,669 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 SIGNS 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.

3.93 Entropy (bits)
342 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
85.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 19% of evaluated openers
2.02 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SIGNS 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.

3.75 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#9,669 Rank among openers
Opening with SIGNS left 2 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 3.75 average. It ranks #9,669 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
29
3 guesses
825
4 guesses
1,217
5 guesses
256
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:
INS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
66%
Green tile
33%
All gray
34%

Feedback distribution

SIGNS can come back 68 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

800 answers
209 answers
205 answers
167 answers
132 answers
101 answers
100 answers
75 answers
56 answers
52 answers
33 answers
33 answers
30 answers
26 answers
26 answers
23 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers
10 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1I1G2N1S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SIGNS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SIGNS:

34% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
9% chance
Suggested:
CRATE
9% chance
Suggested:
PARTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

33.7%
ROATE 6.14 bits
8.8%
CRATE 5.56 bits
8.6%
PARTE 5.47 bits
7.0%
OATER 5.26 bits
5.6%
PRATE 5.53 bits
4.3%
ALURE 5.33 bits
4.2%
CADET 4.49 bits
3.2%
TRADE 4.82 bits
2.4%
CARET 4.61 bits
2.2%
PLIER 4.32 bits

Research on SIGNS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SIGNS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.81 guesses and ranks #11,132 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.96 guesses at best and is rank #5,574 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, at or below the proven-optimal 3.81, 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 SYNZ.

Rhymes with LINES MINES WINES FINES VINES

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SIGNS is a kind of clue or communication.

Synonyms HOUSE mark contract signed signal BLESS

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SIGNS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 51 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 (4.3 of 5).

In a sentence

I know all the signs.
© tatoeba.org contributor CM (CC BY 2.0 FR)
I see the signs well.
© tatoeba.org contributor Objectivesea (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).