5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess B tier for first-turn info

SUGAR

Yes, SUGAR was the Wordle answer on January 25, 2022 (Wordle #220).

As an opener, it rules out about 94.2% of possible answers.

Open Solver with SUGAR Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈʃʊɡə//ˈʃɵɡə//ˈʃʊɡɚ/

Noun

A food consisting of small, sweet crystals, principally of sucrose, obtained from sugar cane or sugar beet and used as sweetener and preservative.

Noun

Any specific variety of sugar.

Verb

To add sugar to; to sweeten with sugar.

“John heavily sugars his coffee.”

Verb

To make (something unpleasant) seem less so.

“She has a gift for sugaring what would otherwise be harsh words.”

Alternative forms: shugar

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: January 25, 2022 (#220).

See the full page for that puzzle: January 25, 2022 (#220).

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

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How SUGAR performs as a guess

SUGAR is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 84.6% of games, misses completely in 15.4%, and leaves about 139 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,644 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

S___R S in the 1st position and R in the 5th position S__A_ S in the 1st position and A in the 4th position _U__R U in the 2nd position and R in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in SUGAR.

First-turn measures

All four describe SUGAR 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.

4.99 Entropy (bits)
139 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
94.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 83% of evaluated openers
0.96 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SUGAR 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.

3.63 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#2,644 Rank among openers
Opening with SUGAR left 1 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 3.63 average. It ranks #2,644 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
60
3 guesses
978
4 guesses
1,100
5 guesses
195
6 guesses
19
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:
ARSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
37%
All gray
15%

Example solver route

R O A T E
C A R R Y
A U G U R
S U G A R

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches SUGAR in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

SUGAR can come back 108 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

366 answers
261 answers
192 answers
138 answers
135 answers
86 answers
77 answers
74 answers
68 answers
66 answers
63 answers
60 answers
55 answers
42 answers
35 answers
35 answers
35 answers
33 answers
31 answers
31 answers
29 answers
26 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1U1G2A1R1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Try next

TOILE CLOTE TRIDE TIARE CLINE CONTE

Strategy after playing SUGAR

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SUGAR:

15% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
11% chance
Suggested:
CLOTE
8% chance
Suggested:
TRIDE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.4% →
TOILE 5.98 bits
11.0% →
CLOTE 5.34 bits
8.1% →
TRIDE 5.25 bits
5.8% →
TIARE 4.55 bits
5.7% →
CLINE 5.10 bits
3.6% →
TOILE 3.79 bits
3.2% →
CONTE 5.04 bits
3.1% →
THALE 4.42 bits
2.9% →
CLINE 4.23 bits
2.8% →
CLOTE 4.74 bits

Research on SUGAR

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

Optimal play

Opening with SUGAR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #3,940 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 SUGAR can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it SHUUGUR.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, SUGAR is a kind of seasoning or molecule.

Synonyms BREAD scratch DOUGH lettuce cabbage loot

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
SUGAR sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 48 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 88 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with taste (4.6 of 5).

In a sentence

Are we out of sugar?
© tatoeba.org contributor ddnktr (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Is sugar good for you?
© tatoeba.org contributor shekitten (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).