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

DECAN

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈdɛkən//di.kæn/

Noun

One of a collection of 36 small constellations or zodiacal subdivisions that appear heliacally at intervals of 10 days or are separated by approximately 10 degrees.

Verb

To remove (something, especially nuclear reactor fuel) from a can or similar protective enclosure, cladding, etc.

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 DECAN performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DECAN 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 85.7% of games, misses completely in 14.3%, and leaves about 136 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,175 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.60 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 DECAN 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.

5.04 Entropy (bits)
136 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 85% of evaluated openers
0.91 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DECAN 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.

3.60 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#1,175 Rank among openers
Opening with DECAN 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 3.60 average. It ranks #1,175 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
73
3 guesses
962
4 guesses
1,155
5 guesses
149
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
25%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

DECAN can come back 110 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

340 answers
269 answers
212 answers
157 answers
107 answers
99 answers
86 answers
70 answers
69 answers
63 answers
61 answers
53 answers
49 answers
47 answers
37 answers
29 answers
28 answers
28 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
23 answers
19 answers
18 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2E1C3A1N1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing DECAN

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DECAN:

14% chance
Suggested:
MOIST
11% chance
Suggested:
TORSE
9% 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
11.3%
TORSE 5.46 bits
8.9%
SLART 5.40 bits
6.6%
SLART 4.88 bits
4.5%
GLINT 4.89 bits
4.2%
COUCH 4.99 bits
3.6%
RESET 4.71 bits
2.9%
SIREE 4.68 bits
2.9%
SHART 4.57 bits
2.7%
GIANT 4.42 bits

Research on DECAN

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

Optimal play

Opening with DECAN, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.65 guesses and ranks #1,495 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 DECAN can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.60, at or below the proven-optimal 3.65, 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 first syllable Say it DEEKUHN. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DECAN 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).