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

DILLS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 87.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /dɪlz/

Noun

plural of dill

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 DILLS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DILLS 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 71.9% of games, misses completely in 28.1%, and leaves about 289 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,688 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 DILLS 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.

4.08 Entropy (bits)
289 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
87.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 26% of evaluated openers
1.87 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DILLS 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
99.87% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#7,688 Rank among openers
Opening with DILLS left 3 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.71 average. It ranks #7,688 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
44
3 guesses
842
4 guesses
1,216
5 guesses
238
6 guesses
11
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

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ILS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
23%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

DILLS can come back 80 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

668 answers
329 answers
215 answers
192 answers
117 answers
93 answers
80 answers
55 answers
52 answers
50 answers
47 answers
41 answers
36 answers
29 answers
24 answers
21 answers
21 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
10 answers
9 answers
9 answers
8 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2I1L1L1S1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing DILLS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DILLS:

28% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
14% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
9% chance
Suggested:
CLEAR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.1%
ROATE 6.20 bits
13.9%
ROATE 5.68 bits
9.1%
CLEAR 5.34 bits
8.1%
TRONE 5.65 bits
4.9%
BRANE 5.29 bits
3.9%
CONTE 4.68 bits
3.4%
TRINE 4.51 bits
2.3%
ORATE 4.77 bits
2.2%
SHAPE 4.58 bits
2.1%
CRANE 4.52 bits

Research on DILLS

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

Optimal play

Opening with DILLS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.77 guesses and ranks #8,955 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 DILLS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.77, 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

One syllable Say it DIHLZ.

Rhymes with BILLS HILLS KILLS MILLS PILLS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, DILLS is a kind of herb or seasoning.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DILLS sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with taste (3.0 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).