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

SLIER

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

As an opener, it rules out about 96.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

comparative form of sly: more sly

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 SLIER performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SLIER 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 90.9% of games, misses completely in 9.1%, and leaves about 78 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #612 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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 SLIER 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.

5.67 Entropy (bits)
78 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
96.7% Avg ruled out
In the top 1% for first-turn entropy
0.28 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SLIER 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#612 Rank among openers
Opening with SLIER left 2 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 3.59 average. It ranks #612 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
90
3 guesses
994
4 guesses
1,082
5 guesses
168
6 guesses
18
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EILRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
91%
Green tile
44%
All gray
9%

Feedback distribution

SLIER can come back 128 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

215 answers
168 answers
143 answers
132 answers
112 answers
89 answers
85 answers
78 answers
76 answers
59 answers
50 answers
49 answers
46 answers
45 answers
43 answers
38 answers
38 answers
38 answers
35 answers
35 answers
33 answers
32 answers
30 answers
29 answers
27 answers
26 answers
24 answers
22 answers
21 answers
21 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1L1I1E1R1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Strategy after playing SLIER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SLIER:

9% chance
Suggested:
MOUNT
7% chance
Suggested:
ACORN
6% chance
Suggested:
COATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

9.1%
MOUNT 5.50 bits
7.1%
ACORN 4.94 bits
6.0%
COATE 5.09 bits
5.6%
COATE 4.79 bits
4.7%
ANTIC 4.96 bits
3.7%
TALLY 4.84 bits
3.6%
SCANT 4.48 bits
3.3%
POTAE 3.45 bits
3.2%
LADLE 4.36 bits
2.5%
CANOE 4.07 bits

Research on SLIER

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

Optimal play

Opening with SLIER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.61 guesses and ranks #260 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 SLIER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.61, 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 SLYUR. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

Synonyms tricky SLICK cunning DODGY crafty foxy

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SLIER sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

In a sentence

She's slier than he is.
© tatoeba.org contributor FeuDRenais (CC BY 2.0 FR)
The bear is stronger than the fox, but the fox is slier.
© tatoeba.org contributor Miktsoanit (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).