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

DARED

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /dɛəd//dɛɹd/

Verb

simple past and past participle of dare

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 DARED performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DARED 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 82.2% of games, misses completely in 17.8%, and leaves about 162 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,480 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.75 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 DARED 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.

4.71 Entropy (bits)
162 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 66% of evaluated openers
1.24 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DARED 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.

3.75 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#9,480 Rank among openers
Opening with DARED left 3 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 3.75 average. It ranks #9,480 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
51
3 guesses
797
4 guesses
1,207
5 guesses
279
6 guesses
17
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
37%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

DARED can come back 88 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

423 answers
244 answers
194 answers
141 answers
131 answers
129 answers
106 answers
96 answers
94 answers
82 answers
66 answers
54 answers
41 answers
38 answers
30 answers
30 answers
30 answers
25 answers
25 answers
22 answers
19 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2A1R1E1D2
Total: 7 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing DARED

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DARED:

18% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
10% chance
Suggested:
STILE
8% chance
Suggested:
SLANT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.8%
SOILY 5.70 bits
10.3%
STILE 5.30 bits
8.2%
SLANT 5.33 bits
5.9%
PRINT 4.89 bits
5.5%
SLANT 5.11 bits
5.4%
SONLY 4.57 bits
4.5%
SOILY 3.50 bits
4.0%
COAST 4.49 bits
4.0%
TOISE 4.49 bits
3.5%
TWEEN 4.24 bits

Research on DARED

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

Optimal play

Opening with DARED, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,559 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 DARED can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.75; proven optimal play reaches 3.73. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.

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 DEHRD.

Rhymes with CARED AIRED LAIRD FARED ERRED

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, DARED is a kind of challenge or move.

Synonyms daring presume defy

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DARED sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 3 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.0 of 5).

In a sentence

He has never dared to go there.
© tatoeba.org contributor rul (CC BY 2.0 FR)
No one dared to speak.
© tatoeba.org contributor Igider (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); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).