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

DENIS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of deni

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 DENIS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DENIS 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 85.0% of games, misses completely in 15.0%, and leaves about 142 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #1,990 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.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.

First-turn measures

All four describe DENIS 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.

4.97 Entropy (bits)
142 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 82% of evaluated openers
0.98 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DENIS 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.

3.62 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#1,990 Rank among openers
Opening with DENIS 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 3.62 average. It ranks #1,990 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
67
3 guesses
951
4 guesses
1,157
5 guesses
165
6 guesses
12
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:
EINS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
85%
Green tile
26%
All gray
15%

Feedback distribution

DENIS can come back 106 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

357 answers
296 answers
185 answers
141 answers
116 answers
106 answers
90 answers
74 answers
61 answers
57 answers
55 answers
50 answers
50 answers
46 answers
42 answers
42 answers
28 answers
28 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
23 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
18 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2E1N1I1S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing DENIS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DENIS:

15% chance
Suggested:
CAROL
12% chance
Suggested:
CARTE
8% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

15.0%
CAROL 6.02 bits
12.5%
CARTE 5.42 bits
7.8%
SLART 5.36 bits
5.9%
SLART 5.06 bits
4.9%
FLIRT 4.83 bits
4.5%
CLARY 4.83 bits
3.8%
GRANT 5.02 bits
3.1%
TRIPE 4.47 bits
2.6%
LAREE 4.43 bits
2.4%
SKIRT 4.36 bits

Research on DENIS

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

Optimal play

Opening with DENIS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #1,977 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 DENIS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.62, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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 DEHNIHS.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DENIS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).