Possible answer Not used yet B tier for first-turn info

DEBAR

DEBAR is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 94.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /dɪˈbɑː(ɹ)/

Verb

To exclude or shut out; to bar.

Verb

To hinder or prevent.

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

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 DEBAR performs as a guess

DEBAR 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 84.3% of games, misses completely in 15.7%, and leaves about 142 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,714 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 DEBAR 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.

5.06 Entropy (bits)
142 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
94.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 86% of evaluated openers
0.89 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DEBAR 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
99.92% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#2,714 Rank among openers
Opening with DEBAR left 2 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 3.63 average. It ranks #2,714 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
78
3 guesses
930
4 guesses
1,132
5 guesses
198
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:
AER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
28%
All gray
16%

Example solver route

R O A T E
G L E A M
C E D A R
D E B A R

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches DEBAR in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

DEBAR can come back 117 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

373 answers
243 answers
232 answers
146 answers
125 answers
95 answers
93 answers
75 answers
54 answers
47 answers
43 answers
43 answers
42 answers
42 answers
42 answers
32 answers
28 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2E1B3A1R1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing DEBAR

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DEBAR:

16% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
10% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
10% chance
Suggested:
STILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.7%
SOILY 5.71 bits
10.2%
SLANT 5.38 bits
9.8%
STILE 5.47 bits
6.1%
COURT 5.22 bits
5.3%
SLANT 4.79 bits
4.0%
STOPE 4.61 bits
3.9%
CHART 4.48 bits
3.2%
SOILY 3.47 bits
2.3%
SENTE 4.04 bits
2.0%
WOULD 4.74 bits

Research on DEBAR

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

Optimal play

Opening with DEBAR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.64 guesses and ranks #1,133 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 DEBAR can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.64, 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

Two syllables, stress on the second syllable Say it DIHBAHR. Estimated pronunciation

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

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, DEBAR is a kind of expel or prevent.

Synonyms bar AVOID exclude suspend deflect AVERT

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DEBAR 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).