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

SORBS

SORBS 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 sorb

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 SORBS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SORBS 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 73.3% of games, misses completely in 26.7%, and leaves about 271 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,958 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.76 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 SORBS 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.

4.07 Entropy (bits)
271 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 26% of evaluated openers
1.87 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SORBS 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.

3.76 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#9,958 Rank among openers
Opening with SORBS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.76 average. It ranks #9,958 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
40
3 guesses
783
4 guesses
1,245
5 guesses
270
6 guesses
15
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:
ORS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
73%
Green tile
34%
All gray
27%

Feedback distribution

SORBS can come back 70 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

634 answers
339 answers
202 answers
137 answers
136 answers
106 answers
98 answers
93 answers
71 answers
52 answers
45 answers
45 answers
43 answers
34 answers
26 answers
24 answers
24 answers
22 answers
18 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1O1R1B3S1
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SORBS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SORBS:

27% chance
Suggested:
LIANE
14% chance
Suggested:
CADET
9% chance
Suggested:
LEANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.7%
LIANE 6.19 bits
14.3%
CADET 5.39 bits
8.5%
LEANT 5.41 bits
5.8%
ALINE 5.43 bits
5.7%
LEANY 4.36 bits
4.5%
CRANE 4.25 bits
4.1%
BLATE 5.34 bits
3.9%
PLATE 5.23 bits
3.0%
CAGEY 4.63 bits
2.2%
PALET 3.70 bits

Research on SORBS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SORBS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,684 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.95 guesses at best and is rank #5,367 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.76, 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 SAWRBZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SORBS is a kind of produce or turn.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SORBS 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).