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

STICH

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /stɪk/

Noun

A part of a line of poetry, especially in the distichal poetry of the Hebrew Bible and in early Germanic heroic verse such as Beowulf, where the line is composed of two (occasionally three) such parts.

Noun

Misspelling of stitch.

Verb

Misspelling of stitch.

Verb

Obsolete form of stitch.

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek στίχος (stíkhos, “line, row, verse”). Akin to στείχω (steíkhō, “I go”).

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

How it sounds

One syllable Say it STIHCH.

Rhymes with WHICH BITCH PITCH WITCH MITCH

Use STICH in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.6% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

How STICH performs as a guess

Wordle accepts STICH 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 73.6% of games, misses completely in 26.4%, and leaves about 225 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,661 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.61 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 STICH 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.

4.69 Entropy (bits)
225 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.6% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How STICH 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.

3.61 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#1,661 Rank among openers
Opening with STICH solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.61 average. It ranks #1,661 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
53
3 guesses
1,011
4 guesses
1,100
5 guesses
174
6 guesses
16

Composition

5/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
IST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
33%
All gray
26%

Feedback distribution

STICH can come back 103 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

629 answers
208 answers
166 answers
116 answers
112 answers
98 answers
84 answers
70 answers
54 answers
53 answers
49 answers
35 answers
34 answers
34 answers
34 answers
32 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
17 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1T1I1C3H4
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing STICH

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing STICH:

26% chance
Suggested:
ALONE
9% chance
Suggested:
TREAT
7% chance
Suggested:
LINER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.4% →
ALONE 5.96 bits
8.7% →
TREAT 5.53 bits
7.0% →
LINER 5.26 bits
4.9% →
PORAE 5.49 bits
4.7% →
PARLE 5.34 bits
4.1% →
GLARE 5.11 bits
3.5% →
AROSE 5.09 bits
2.9% →
TRAIT 4.36 bits
2.3% →
ROUSE 4.45 bits
2.2% →
LEARY 4.96 bits

Research on STICH

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

Optimal play

Opening with STICH, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #3,878 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 STICH can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.61, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
STICH 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).