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

DECAD

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈdɛkæd/

Noun

A group of ten notes from which the consonant triads may be constructed

Noun

Archaic form of decade (“period of ten years”).

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

Doublet of decade and dekad. By surface analysis, dec- + -ad.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Use DECAD in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 90.4% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.

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

How DECAD performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DECAD 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 80.2% of games, misses completely in 19.8%, and leaves about 228 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #10,330 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.77 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 DECAD 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.

4.23 Entropy (bits)
228 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
90.4% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DECAD 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.

3.77 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.71 Spread of game lengths
#10,330 Rank among openers
Opening with DECAD left 4 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 3.77 average. It ranks #10,330 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
51
3 guesses
753
4 guesses
1,249
5 guesses
283
6 guesses
14

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AE

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
80%
Green tile
25%
All gray
20%

Feedback distribution

DECAD can come back 80 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

473 answers
363 answers
298 answers
193 answers
136 answers
119 answers
89 answers
72 answers
65 answers
42 answers
37 answers
35 answers
32 answers
29 answers
26 answers
26 answers
25 answers
21 answers
19 answers
19 answers
17 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
9 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2E1C3A1D2
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing DECAD

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DECAD:

20% chance
Suggested:
SNOUT
15% chance
Suggested:
SIREE
12% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

19.8% →
SNOUT 5.78 bits
15.2% →
SIREE 5.34 bits
12.5% →
SLART 5.31 bits
8.1% →
ALTER 4.63 bits
5.7% →
CHOIR 5.05 bits
5.0% →
SIREN 4.56 bits
3.7% →
CRASH 4.38 bits
3.0% →
SOREE 4.83 bits
2.7% →
SORAL 4.42 bits
1.8% →
RIONE 4.43 bits

Research on DECAD

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

Optimal play

Opening with DECAD, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.78 guesses and ranks #9,822 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 DECAD can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.77, at or below the proven-optimal 3.78, 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.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DECAD 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); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).