DERBY
DERBY is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈdɑː.bi//ˈdäː.bi//ˈdɝ.bi/
- Noun
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Any of several annual horse races.
- Noun
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Any organized race.
“a donkey derby”
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English Derby, from Old English Dēorby, of Scandinavian/North Germanic origin, from Old Norse Djúra-bý (“village of the deer”), from dýr (“deer”) + bǿr (“settlement”). Influenced by British Latin Derventio, the Roman site predating Derby, and possibly also the Celtic river name Derwent.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it DURBEE.
Rhymes with KIRBY
Related meanings
Synonyms bowler
In a sentence
Did you enjoy the derby?
His horse ran in the Derby.
Use DERBY in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 91.3% 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
No completed appearanceNo appearance in our globally completed history. A recent puzzle may still be live elsewhere.
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 →DERBY in Connections
5 recorded appearances in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.
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· Puzzle #1197
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DERBY appeared in ASSOCIATED WITH KENTUCKY (green group).
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· Puzzle #976
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DERBY appeared in ROLLER ___ (purple group).
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· Puzzle #950
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DERBY appeared in KINDS OF HATS (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #524
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DERBY appeared in KINDS OF HATS (green group).
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· Puzzle #119
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DERBY appeared in CITIES AND TOWNS IN ENGLAND (blue group).
How DERBY performs as a guess
DERBY 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 79.8% of games, misses completely in 20.2%, and leaves about 208 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,101 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.
Useful pattern pages
If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.
First-turn measures
All four describe DERBY 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 DERBY 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 DERBY in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
DERBY can come back 95 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 DERBY; 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 DERBY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to DERBY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing DERBY:
Research on DERBY
Game-tree analysis and word research for DERBY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with DERBY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,505 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 DERBY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- DERBY 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 (4.0 of 5).
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).