SUMAC
Yes, SUMAC was the Wordle answer on January 18, 2026 (Wordle #1674).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈs(j)uːmæk//ˈʃuː-//ˈsuːˌmæk/
- Noun
-
Any of various shrubs or small trees of the genus Rhus and certain other genera in Anacardiaceae.
- Noun
-
Dried and chopped-up leaves and stems of a plant of the genus Rhus, particularly tanner's sumac (see sense 1), used for dyeing and tanning leather or for medicinal purposes.
- Verb
-
To apply a preparation of sumac to (an object), for example, to a piece of leather to tan it.
Alternative forms: shumac, shumack, sumach, sumack
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English sumac, asimac, simak, sumak, symak (“portions of the shrub Rhus coriaria, chiefly used for medicinal purposes”), from Anglo-Norman sumak, symak, and Old French sumac, or directly from its etymon Medieval Latin sumach, sumac, from Arabic سُمَّاق (summāq), from Classical Syriac ܣܘܡܩܐ (summāqā, “red; sumac”). The English word is cognate with Italian sommaco, sommacco, Occitan simac, Portuguese sumagre, Spanish zumaque.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it SOOMAK.
Use SUMAC in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 91.3% of possible answers.
Wordle status
A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.
Playable guess
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: January 18, 2026 (#1674).
See the full page for that puzzle: January 18, 2026 (#1674).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How SUMAC performs as a guess
SUMAC is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 77.8% of games, misses completely in 22.2%, and leaves about 208 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #3,157 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.64 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe SUMAC 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How SUMAC 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches SUMAC in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
SUMAC can come back 96 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for SUMAC; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing SUMAC
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to SUMAC.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing SUMAC:
Research on SUMAC
Game-tree analysis and word research for SUMAC, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with SUMAC, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,330 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.
In hard mode it averages 3.81 guesses at best and is rank #1,737 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.64, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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
- SUMAC 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).