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

SNAGS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of snag

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of snag

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 SNAGS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SNAGS 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 73.0% of games, misses completely in 27.0%, and leaves about 271 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,600 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 SNAGS 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.

4.10 Entropy (bits)
271 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 27% of evaluated openers
1.85 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SNAGS 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
99.70% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#9,600 Rank among openers
Opening with SNAGS left 7 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.75 average. It ranks #9,600 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
37
3 guesses
794
4 guesses
1,243
5 guesses
257
6 guesses
16
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:
ANS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
33%
All gray
27%

Feedback distribution

SNAGS can come back 66 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

641 answers
335 answers
183 answers
166 answers
133 answers
101 answers
88 answers
76 answers
57 answers
46 answers
43 answers
42 answers
40 answers
39 answers
38 answers
36 answers
29 answers
28 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1N1A1G2S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SNAGS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SNAGS:

27% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
14% chance
Suggested:
TALER
8% chance
Suggested:
RIONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

27.0%
TOILE 6.03 bits
14.1%
TALER 5.55 bits
7.7%
RIONE 5.18 bits
7.0%
PORTE 5.17 bits
5.6%
TRICE 5.12 bits
4.3%
ROUET 5.35 bits
3.7%
CARET 4.30 bits
3.2%
DROLE 5.17 bits
2.4%
TRICE 3.72 bits
1.9%
TUILE 4.60 bits

Research on SNAGS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SNAGS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,940 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 SNAGS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.75, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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 SNAGZ.

Rhymes with FLAGS DRAGS BRAGS CRAGS MAGGS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SNAGS is a kind of bump or tree.

Synonyms SPLIT rent tear rip rub HITCH

Familiarity and learning

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