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

DIRKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of dirk

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of dirk

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 DIRKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DIRKS 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 78.9% of games, misses completely in 21.1%, and leaves about 207 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,657 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.68 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 DIRKS 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.

4.40 Entropy (bits)
207 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 45% of evaluated openers
1.55 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DIRKS 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.

3.68 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#5,657 Rank among openers
Opening with DIRKS 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 3.68 average. It ranks #5,657 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
39
3 guesses
913
4 guesses
1,174
5 guesses
213
6 guesses
13
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:
IRS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
79%
Green tile
22%
All gray
21%

Feedback distribution

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

501 answers
299 answers
255 answers
166 answers
94 answers
91 answers
89 answers
83 answers
79 answers
71 answers
52 answers
49 answers
42 answers
37 answers
36 answers
31 answers
29 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers
17 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
10 answers
9 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2I1R1K5S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing DIRKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DIRKS:

21% chance
Suggested:
OLATE
13% chance
Suggested:
OLATE
11% chance
Suggested:
SLATE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.1%
OLATE 6.01 bits
12.6%
OLATE 5.26 bits
10.7%
SLATE 5.82 bits
7.0%
ANILE 5.42 bits
4.0%
COATE 4.96 bits
3.8%
ALONE 5.25 bits
3.7%
PALET 4.58 bits
3.5%
SPATE 5.05 bits
3.3%
TRINE 4.77 bits
3.0%
LEANT 4.60 bits

Research on DIRKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with DIRKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.70 guesses and ranks #5,066 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.83 guesses at best and is rank #2,278 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.68, at or below the proven-optimal 3.70, 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 DURKS.

Rhymes with WORKS TURKS PERKS JERKS LURKS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, DIRKS is a kind of sticker.

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DIRKS 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 relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).