DELTA
Yes, DELTA was the Wordle answer on September 2, 2021 (Wordle #75).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈdɛltə/[ˈdɛɫtə]
- Noun
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The fourth letter of the modern Greek alphabet Δ, δ.
- Noun
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A landform at the mouth of a river where it empties into a body of water.
“Nile Delta”
- Verb
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To calculate the differences between the characters in an enciphered text and the characters a fixed number of positions previous.
- Verb
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To compare two versions of the same file in order to determine where they differ (where a programmer has made edits).
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek δέλτα (délta), borrowed from a Phoenician word for "door", ultimately from Proto-Semitic *dalt-. Doublet of dalet.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it DEHLTUH.
In a sentence
The Nile Delta is situated north of Cairo.
Everybody wants to be a sigma, but nobody wants to be a delta.
Use DELTA in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 95.4% of possible answers.
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: September 2, 2021 (#75).
See the full page for that puzzle: September 2, 2021 (#75).
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 →DELTA in Connections
6 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . Showing the 5 most recent. A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #1206
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DELTA appeared in RIVER FEATURES (green group).
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· Puzzle #1093
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DELTA appeared in LANDFORMS BY WATER (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #857
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DELTA appeared in IN THE NATO PHONETIC ALPHABET (green group).
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· Puzzle #550
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DELTA appeared in PARTS OF A RIVER (purple group).
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· Puzzle #182
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DELTA appeared in PARTS OF A RIVER (yellow group).
How DELTA performs as a guess
DELTA is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 88.7% of games, misses completely in 11.3%, and leaves about 109 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,197 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.62 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 DELTA 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 DELTA 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 DELTA in 2 guesses.
Feedback distribution
DELTA can come back 111 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 DELTA; 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 DELTA
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to DELTA.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing DELTA:
Research on DELTA
Game-tree analysis and word research for DELTA, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with DELTA, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.63 guesses and ranks #862 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 DELTA can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.63, 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
- DELTA sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 13 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.3 of 5).
Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).