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

SUCKS

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /sʌks//sʊks/

Noun

plural of suck

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of suck

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

How it sounds

One syllable Say it SUHKS.

Rhymes with BUCKS DUCKS TUCKS LUCKS RUCKS

Related meanings

Synonyms draw blow NURSE sucking absorb STINK

In a sentence

It sucks to be you.
© tatoeba.org contributor Ooneykcall (CC BY 2.0 FR)
This is what sucks the most.
© tatoeba.org contributor Amastan (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Use SUCKS in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 78.3% 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 SUCKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SUCKS 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 56.5% of games, misses completely in 43.5%, and leaves about 518 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,040 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.84 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 SUCKS 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.

3.39 Entropy (bits)
518 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
78.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SUCKS 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.

3.84 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#13,040 Rank among openers
Opening with SUCKS left 3 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 3.84 average. It ranks #13,040 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
29
3 guesses
687
4 guesses
1,284
5 guesses
322
6 guesses
29

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
SU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
56%
Green tile
28%
All gray
44%

Feedback distribution

SUCKS can come back 59 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1038 answers
219 answers
218 answers
144 answers
132 answers
109 answers
48 answers
38 answers
35 answers
34 answers
31 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1U1C3K5S1
Total: 11 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing SUCKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SUCKS:

44% chance
Suggested:
ARIEL
9% chance
Suggested:
PLATE
9% chance
Suggested:
TIARE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

43.5% →
ARIEL 6.14 bits
9.2% →
PLATE 5.43 bits
9.1% →
TIARE 5.56 bits
6.0% →
TRONE 5.40 bits
5.5% →
ROATE 5.60 bits
4.6% →
MARLE 4.34 bits
2.0% →
BLAER 4.71 bits
1.6% →
CARLE 4.02 bits
1.5% →
PORAE 4.30 bits
1.4% →
TRONE 3.84 bits

Research on SUCKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SUCKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.88 guesses and ranks #13,482 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 4.01 guesses at best and is rank #6,363 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.84, at or below the proven-optimal 3.88, 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
SUCKS sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 24 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.

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).