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

DINKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.2% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of dink

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of dink

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 DINKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DINKS 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 71.2% of games, misses completely in 28.8%, and leaves about 281 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #6,917 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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 DINKS 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.

4.17 Entropy (bits)
281 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.2% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 31% of evaluated openers
1.77 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DINKS 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#6,917 Rank among openers
Opening with DINKS 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 3.70 average. It ranks #6,917 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
43
3 guesses
855
4 guesses
1,236
5 guesses
203
6 guesses
17
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
1 vowels
Common:
INS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
71%
Green tile
20%
All gray
29%

Feedback distribution

DINKS can come back 76 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

684 answers
316 answers
155 answers
142 answers
115 answers
88 answers
84 answers
68 answers
60 answers
55 answers
52 answers
49 answers
49 answers
29 answers
28 answers
27 answers
26 answers
25 answers
25 answers
24 answers
22 answers
21 answers
19 answers
14 answers
13 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
12 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2I1N1K5S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing DINKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DINKS:

29% chance
Suggested:
ROATE
13% chance
Suggested:
STARE
7% chance
Suggested:
CRATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.8%
ROATE 6.17 bits
13.3%
STARE 5.77 bits
6.5%
CRATE 5.54 bits
6.0%
ROATE 5.35 bits
4.8%
ALURE 5.36 bits
3.7%
PALET 4.73 bits
3.5%
GRATE 4.75 bits
2.9%
CAGEY 4.65 bits
2.5%
STALE 4.48 bits
2.3%
ORATE 4.78 bits

Research on DINKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with DINKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.72 guesses and ranks #5,921 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 DINKS can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.72, 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 DIHNGKS. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, DINKS is a kind of couple or return.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DINKS 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), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).