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

DAHLS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of dahl

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 DAHLS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DAHLS 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 81.5% of games, misses completely in 18.5%, and leaves about 166 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,692 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe DAHLS 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.

4.66 Entropy (bits)
166 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 63% of evaluated openers
1.28 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DAHLS 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
0.66 Spread of game lengths
#2,692 Rank among openers
Opening with DAHLS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.66 means those games clustered within about 0.66 of a guess of the 3.63 average. It ranks #2,692 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
45
3 guesses
958
4 guesses
1,174
5 guesses
170
6 guesses
6
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
1 vowels
Common:
ALS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
25%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

DAHLS can come back 82 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

439 answers
226 answers
172 answers
158 answers
140 answers
139 answers
130 answers
95 answers
89 answers
59 answers
55 answers
52 answers
44 answers
36 answers
35 answers
34 answers
32 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
20 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2A1H4L1S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing DAHLS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DAHLS:

18% chance
Suggested:
TRONE
10% chance
Suggested:
ROUET
7% chance
Suggested:
TRONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.5%
TRONE 6.11 bits
9.5%
ROUET 5.59 bits
7.2%
TRONE 5.68 bits
6.7%
RIONE 4.98 bits
5.9%
TONEY 4.86 bits
5.9%
CONTE 5.42 bits
5.5%
CRONE 4.47 bits
4.0%
IRONE 5.24 bits
3.7%
PEART 4.96 bits
2.5%
NOIRE 5.16 bits

Research on DAHLS

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

Optimal play

Opening with DAHLS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,561 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 DAHLS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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 DAHLZ. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, DAHLS is a kind of bush or pea.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DAHLS sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).