DECOY
Yes, DECOY was the Wordle answer on July 16, 2024 (Wordle #1123).
As an opener, it rules out about 92.4% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈdiːkɔɪ/
- Noun
-
A person or object meant to lure somebody into danger.
- Noun
-
A real or fake animal used by hunters to lure game.
- Verb
-
To lead into danger by artifice; to lure into a net or snare; to entrap.
- Verb
-
To act as, or use, a decoy.
“As they were being decoyed, the rescue team carried the hostage and quietly slipped away.”
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: July 16, 2024 (#1123).
See the full page for that puzzle: July 16, 2024 (#1123).
The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.
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See what the public sample says →How DECOY performs as a guess
DECOY 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 85.1% of games, misses completely in 14.9%, and leaves about 182 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,354 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.69 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe DECOY 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.
As an opening guess: previous benchmark
How DECOY 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.
Composition
Feedback chances
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches DECOY in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
DECOY can come back 93 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:
Letter-value totals
Base letter-value totals for DECOY; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.
Scrabble
Words With Friends
Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.
Try next
Strategy after playing DECOY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to DECOY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing DECOY:
Research on DECOY
Game-tree analysis and word research for DECOY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with DECOY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,629 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 DECOY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.69, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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 DUHKOY.
Related meanings
In WordNet's sense inventory, DECOY is a kind of cheat or device.
Synonyms bait lure
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- DECOY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about once 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 (4.4 of 5).
In a sentence
Tom is acting as a decoy.
The suitcase was a decoy.
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).