DIRTY
DIRTY is on the solver's possible-answer list and has no appearance in our globally completed Wordle history.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈdɜːti//ˈdɝti/[ˈdɝɾi]
- Adjective
-
Unclean; covered with or containing unpleasant substances such as dirt or grime.
“Despite a walk in the rain, my shoes weren't too dirty.”
- Adjective
-
That makes one unclean; corrupting, infecting.
“Don't put that in your mouth, dear. It's dirty.”
- Adverb
-
In a dirty manner.
“to play dirty”
- Verb
-
To make (something) dirty.
Alternative forms: dorty
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English dirti, alteration of earlier dritti, equivalent to dirt + -y. Cognate with Middle Low German drēterich (“dirty”).
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it DURTEE.
Related meanings
Synonyms soil cheating foul filthy MUDDY LOUSY
Opposites CLEAN nice LEGAL fair
In a sentence
This is a little dirty.
It was a dirty game.
Use DIRTY in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 92.8% 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 →DIRTY 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 #584
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DIRTY appeared in MARTINI SPECIFICATIONS (blue group).
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· Puzzle #341
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DIRTY appeared in CORRUPT (yellow group).
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· Puzzle #278
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DIRTY appeared in PLAY ___ (purple group).
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· Puzzle #240
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DIRTY appeared in KINDS OF BLOND (blue group).
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· Puzzle #238
Reveal this appearance's category
DIRTY appeared in MARTINI SPECIFICATIONS (purple group).
How DIRTY performs as a guess
DIRTY 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 81.0% of games, misses completely in 19.0%, and leaves about 171 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #2,625 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.63 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 DIRTY 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 DIRTY 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 DIRTY in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
DIRTY can come back 106 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 DIRTY; 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 DIRTY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to DIRTY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing DIRTY:
Research on DIRTY
Game-tree analysis and word research for DIRTY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with DIRTY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,491 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 DIRTY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.63, at or below the proven-optimal 3.66, 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
- DIRTY sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 35 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
- Learner level
- Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 74 of 100. Raters found it easy to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.2 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); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).