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

SILLS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 83.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of sill

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 SILLS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SILLS 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 64.6% of games, misses completely in 35.4%, and leaves about 387 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,140 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.81 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 SILLS 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.

3.65 Entropy (bits)
387 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
83.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 10% of evaluated openers
2.29 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SILLS 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.

3.81 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#12,140 Rank among openers
Opening with SILLS left 4 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 3.81 average. It ranks #12,140 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
26
3 guesses
745
4 guesses
1,244
5 guesses
309
6 guesses
26
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

3/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ILS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
65%
Green tile
33%
All gray
35%

Feedback distribution

SILLS can come back 62 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

840 answers
248 answers
243 answers
209 answers
127 answers
125 answers
60 answers
58 answers
54 answers
41 answers
30 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1I1L1L1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing SILLS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SILLS:

35% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
10% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
10% chance
Suggested:
PORAE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

35.4%
ROATE 6.15 bits
10.4%
TRONE 5.62 bits
10.2%
PORAE 5.21 bits
8.8%
PEART 5.43 bits
5.3%
ROATE 5.54 bits
5.3%
RONTE 4.80 bits
2.5%
CRANE 4.52 bits
2.4%
CARTE 4.47 bits
2.3%
TRINE 4.37 bits
1.7%
MORAE 4.62 bits

Research on SILLS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SILLS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.88 guesses and ranks #13,468 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 SILLS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.81, at or below the proven-optimal 3.88, 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 SIHLZ.

Rhymes with BILLS HILLS KILLS MILLS PILLS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SILLS is a kind of support or rock.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SILLS 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.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.6 of 5).

In a sentence

Tom painted the window sills white.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
We need to repaint our window sills.
© 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).