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

SIKES

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

As an opener, it rules out about 89.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of sike

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of sike

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 SIKES performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SIKES 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 77.7% of games, misses completely in 22.3%, and leaves about 241 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,396 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.86 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 SIKES 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.

4.12 Entropy (bits)
241 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
89.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 28% of evaluated openers
1.82 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SIKES 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.

3.86 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#13,396 Rank among openers
Opening with SIKES left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.86 average. It ranks #13,396 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
35
3 guesses
664
4 guesses
1,274
5 guesses
348
6 guesses
32
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)
78%
Green tile
36%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

SIKES can come back 64 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

530 answers
385 answers
203 answers
195 answers
127 answers
100 answers
97 answers
72 answers
69 answers
67 answers
66 answers
40 answers
35 answers
31 answers
31 answers
31 answers
29 answers
24 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
15 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1I1K5E1S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing SIKES

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SIKES:

22% chance
Suggested:
TALON
16% chance
Suggested:
LEARE
9% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

22.3%
TALON 5.75 bits
16.2%
LEARE 5.50 bits
8.6%
TRAIN 5.40 bits
8.2%
OATER 4.27 bits
5.3%
ROANY 4.79 bits
4.2%
SALTY 3.71 bits
4.1%
TRINE 4.48 bits
3.0%
PARTE 4.54 bits
2.9%
ROATE 4.41 bits
2.8%
TRASH 4.89 bits

Research on SIKES

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

Optimal play

Opening with SIKES, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #12,126 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 SIKES can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.86; proven optimal play reaches 3.83. 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 SYKS.

Rhymes with LIKES BIKES YIKES HIKES SYKES

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SIKES 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).