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

DEVOS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.6% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Proper noun

A surname from Dutch.

Alternative forms: De Vos, de Vos, Vos

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 DEVOS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DEVOS 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 82.0% of games, misses completely in 18.0%, and leaves about 199 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #9,167 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.74 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 DEVOS 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.

4.38 Entropy (bits)
199 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.6% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 43% of evaluated openers
1.57 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DEVOS 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.

3.74 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#9,167 Rank among openers
Opening with DEVOS solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.74 average. It ranks #9,167 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
48
3 guesses
764
4 guesses
1,298
5 guesses
232
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:
EOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
22%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

DEVOS can come back 82 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

427 answers
343 answers
230 answers
212 answers
147 answers
129 answers
85 answers
73 answers
73 answers
64 answers
60 answers
44 answers
44 answers
35 answers
29 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
17 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2E1V4O1S1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing DEVOS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DEVOS:

18% chance
Suggested:
CAIRN
14% chance
Suggested:
ALTER
10% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

18.0%
CAIRN 5.89 bits
14.4%
ALTER 5.47 bits
9.7%
SLART 5.24 bits
8.9%
TONAL 5.10 bits
6.2%
PARTE 4.91 bits
5.4%
REATE 4.49 bits
3.6%
RONTE 4.54 bits
3.1%
TALER 4.57 bits
3.1%
RAINE 4.84 bits
2.7%
SHORT 4.38 bits

Research on DEVOS

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

Optimal play

Opening with DEVOS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #8,259 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 DEVOS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.74, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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 DEEVOHZ.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DEVOS sits in the advanced band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as an uncommon word many players still recognize.

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).