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

SULLS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 80.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of sull

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 SULLS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts SULLS 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 59.1% of games, misses completely in 40.9%, and leaves about 475 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,661 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.88 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 SULLS 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.

3.45 Entropy (bits)
475 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
80.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 6% of evaluated openers
2.50 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How SULLS 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.

3.88 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.75 Spread of game lengths
#13,661 Rank among openers
Opening with SULLS left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.75 means those games clustered within about 0.75 of a guess of the 3.88 average. It ranks #13,661 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
29
3 guesses
686
4 guesses
1,225
5 guesses
368
6 guesses
43
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

3/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
LSU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
59%
Green tile
32%
All gray
41%

Feedback distribution

SULLS can come back 62 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

972 answers
268 answers
220 answers
133 answers
132 answers
109 answers
61 answers
52 answers
44 answers
42 answers
32 answers
22 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

S1U1L1L1S1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing SULLS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing SULLS:

41% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
11% chance
Suggested:
TIARE
9% chance
Suggested:
PARTE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

40.9%
ROATE 6.08 bits
11.3%
TIARE 5.34 bits
9.3%
PARTE 5.41 bits
5.6%
ROATE 5.60 bits
5.6%
TRONE 5.48 bits
4.6%
MORNE 4.28 bits
2.6%
DAINE 4.71 bits
2.2%
ROATE 4.60 bits
1.9%
ATONE 4.11 bits
1.8%
FLUME 3.91 bits

Research on SULLS

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

Optimal play

Opening with SULLS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.93 guesses and ranks #14,225 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 SULLS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.88, at or below the proven-optimal 3.93, 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 SUHLZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.