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

SOMAN

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

A highly toxic G-series nerve agent in the organophosphate class of chemical warfare agents. It works by irreversibly inhibiting acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme needed to regulate nerve signals, which leads to uncontrolled muscle activity and disruption of vital nervous system functions.

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 SOMAN performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SOMAN 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 83.2% of games, misses completely in 16.8%, and leaves about 147 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,889 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 SOMAN 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.

4.97 Entropy (bits)
147 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 82% of evaluated openers
0.98 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SOMAN 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#1,889 Rank among openers
Opening with SOMAN left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.62 average. It ranks #1,889 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
59
3 guesses
975
4 guesses
1,141
5 guesses
164
6 guesses
14
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:
ANOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
38%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

SOMAN can come back 102 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

398 answers
292 answers
144 answers
123 answers
115 answers
106 answers
79 answers
76 answers
71 answers
70 answers
66 answers
51 answers
50 answers
48 answers
43 answers
36 answers
36 answers
33 answers
28 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1O1M3A1N1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing SOMAN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SOMAN:

17% chance
Suggested:
TRIED
12% chance
Suggested:
CARLE
6% chance
Suggested:
TRICE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

16.8%
TRIED 6.05 bits
12.3%
CARLE 5.47 bits
6.1%
TRICE 5.24 bits
5.2%
TRICE 5.03 bits
4.8%
CLOTE 4.33 bits
4.5%
PLIER 5.18 bits
3.3%
CRUET 5.17 bits
3.2%
CARET 4.35 bits
3.0%
REACT 4.40 bits
2.9%
PLATE 4.54 bits

Research on SOMAN

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

Optimal play

Opening with SOMAN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,491 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.77 guesses at best and is rank #705 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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 SOHMUHN. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SOMAN is a kind of agent.

Synonyms gd

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SOMAN 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.

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).