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

DEBUD

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

As an opener, it rules out about 83.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Verb

To remove the bud or buds from.

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 DEBUD performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DEBUD 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 69.3% of games, misses completely in 30.7%, and leaves about 385 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #13,364 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.86 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 DEBUD 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.

3.65 Entropy (bits)
385 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
83.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 10% of evaluated openers
2.30 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DEBUD 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.

3.86 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#13,364 Rank among openers
Opening with DEBUD left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 3.86 average. It ranks #13,364 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
650
4 guesses
1,252
5 guesses
372
6 guesses
26
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:
EU

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
69%
Green tile
23%
All gray
31%

Feedback distribution

DEBUD can come back 71 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

730 answers
540 answers
195 answers
151 answers
82 answers
71 answers
48 answers
43 answers
42 answers
41 answers
40 answers
40 answers
31 answers
27 answers
25 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
17 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2E1B3U1D2
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing DEBUD

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DEBUD:

31% chance
Suggested:
ROAST
23% chance
Suggested:
STAIR
8% chance
Suggested:
SONLY

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

30.7%
ROAST 5.94 bits
22.7%
STAIR 5.43 bits
8.2%
SONLY 4.67 bits
6.4%
SLART 4.87 bits
3.5%
STURE 4.63 bits
3.0%
ROAST 4.77 bits
2.0%
RAILE 4.61 bits
1.8%
RADIO 4.50 bits
1.8%
SCOUR 4.37 bits
1.7%
ROANY 4.26 bits

Research on DEBUD

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

Optimal play

Opening with DEBUD, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.83 guesses and ranks #12,126 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 DEBUD can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.86; proven optimal play reaches 3.83. 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it DEHBUHD. Estimated pronunciation

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

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.