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

DEMOS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.9% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈdiːmɒs//ˈdiˌmɑs//ˈdiˌmɔs/

Noun

An ancient subdivision of Attica; (now also) a Greek municipality, an administrative area covering a city or several villages together.

Noun

The ordinary citizens of an ancient Greek city-state; hence, the common populace of a state or district (especially a democratic one); the people.

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of demo

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 DEMOS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DEMOS 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 84.2% of games, misses completely in 15.8%, and leaves about 168 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,178 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 DEMOS 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.

4.64 Entropy (bits)
168 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 61% of evaluated openers
1.31 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DEMOS 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.

3.67 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.67 Spread of game lengths
#5,178 Rank among openers
Opening with DEMOS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.67 means those games clustered within about 0.67 of a guess of the 3.67 average. It ranks #5,178 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
57
3 guesses
857
4 guesses
1,252
5 guesses
175
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:
EOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
84%
Green tile
22%
All gray
16%

Feedback distribution

DEMOS can come back 89 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

375 answers
327 answers
204 answers
183 answers
141 answers
128 answers
96 answers
71 answers
62 answers
59 answers
58 answers
57 answers
43 answers
42 answers
41 answers
31 answers
30 answers
28 answers
26 answers
21 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2E1M3O1S1
Total: 8 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing DEMOS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DEMOS:

16% chance
Suggested:
CAIRN
14% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
9% chance
Suggested:
SAULT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.8%
CAIRN 5.91 bits
13.8%
ALTER 5.49 bits
8.6%
SAULT 5.34 bits
7.7%
TONAL 5.12 bits
5.9%
STAIR 4.91 bits
5.4%
LEARE 4.58 bits
4.0%
RONTE 4.51 bits
3.0%
RAILE 4.85 bits
2.6%
TALER 4.59 bits
2.5%
SHART 4.44 bits

Research on DEMOS

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

Optimal play

Opening with DEMOS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.69 guesses and ranks #4,251 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 DEMOS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.69, 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 DEHMOHZ.

Rhymes with MEMOS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, DEMOS is a kind of communication or show.

Synonyms show present demonstrate exhibit demonstration

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DEMOS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 3 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.

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).