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

DANCE

Yes, DANCE was the Wordle answer on February 5, 2023 (Wordle #596).

As an opener, it rules out about 95.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with DANCE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /dɑːns//dans/[däns ~ dans]

Noun

A sequence of rhythmic steps or movements usually performed to music, for pleasure or as a form of social interaction.

“I do a dance when she plays the drums!”

Noun

A social gathering where dancing is the main activity.

“The dance we had in August 2008 is one of the greatest moments of my life!”

Verb

To move with rhythmic steps or movements, especially in time to music.

“I danced with her all night long.”

Verb

To leap or move lightly and rapidly.

“His eyes danced with pleasure as he spoke. She accused her political opponent of dancing around the issue instead of confronting it.”

Alternative forms: daunce

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: February 5, 2023 (#596).

See the full page for that puzzle: February 5, 2023 (#596).

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

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How DANCE performs as a guess

DANCE 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 85.7% of games, misses completely in 14.3%, and leaves about 115 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #609 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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.

D___E D in the 1st position and E in the 5th position D__C_ D in the 1st position and C in the 4th position _A__E A in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe DANCE 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.

5.29 Entropy (bits)
115 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
95.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 94% of evaluated openers
0.66 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DANCE 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#609 Rank among openers
Opening with DANCE left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.59 average. It ranks #609 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
69
3 guesses
995
4 guesses
1,134
5 guesses
140
6 guesses
13
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:
AEN

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
41%
All gray
14%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S M I L Y
B O U G H
D A N C E

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches DANCE in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

DANCE can come back 114 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

340 answers
214 answers
170 answers
141 answers
105 answers
89 answers
74 answers
73 answers
65 answers
63 answers
52 answers
49 answers
48 answers
47 answers
40 answers
37 answers
37 answers
32 answers
29 answers
28 answers
28 answers
27 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2A1N1C3E1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Try next

MOIST RESET SLART TORSE SOILY SATYR

Strategy after playing DANCE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DANCE:

14% chance
Suggested:
MOIST
9% chance
Suggested:
RESET
7% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.3% →
MOIST 5.79 bits
9.0% →
RESET 5.37 bits
7.2% →
SLART 5.49 bits
5.9% →
TORSE 4.68 bits
4.4% →
SOILY 4.81 bits
3.7% →
SATYR 4.30 bits
3.1% →
SLART 4.97 bits
3.1% →
SLART 4.56 bits
2.7% →
SILER 4.32 bits
2.7% →
SOULY 4.82 bits

Research on DANCE

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

Optimal play

Opening with DANCE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.60 guesses and ranks #175 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 DANCE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.60, 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 DANS.

Rhymes with LANCE NANCE RANCE HANCE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, DANCE is a kind of art or party.

Synonyms dancing

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DANCE sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 85 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 5, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 85 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.5 of 5).

In a sentence

Can I have this dance?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Do you like to dance?
© tatoeba.org contributor fanty (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).