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

DOCKS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 88.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /dɒks/

Noun

plural of dock

Noun

A collection of docks, wharves, warehouses and offices

Verb

third-person singular simple present indicative of dock

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 DOCKS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DOCKS 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 71.8% of games, misses completely in 28.2%, and leaves about 286 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,930 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.72 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 DOCKS 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.

4.04 Entropy (bits)
286 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 25% of evaluated openers
1.91 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DOCKS 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.

3.72 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.66 Spread of game lengths
#7,930 Rank among openers
Opening with DOCKS left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.66 means those games clustered within about 0.66 of a guess of the 3.72 average. It ranks #7,930 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
36
3 guesses
824
4 guesses
1,266
5 guesses
218
6 guesses
9
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:
OS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
72%
Green tile
21%
All gray
28%

Feedback distribution

DOCKS can come back 68 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

670 answers
320 answers
193 answers
173 answers
141 answers
127 answers
62 answers
60 answers
47 answers
42 answers
42 answers
39 answers
37 answers
35 answers
33 answers
31 answers
29 answers
27 answers
25 answers
23 answers
19 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
11 answers
10 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2O1C3K5S1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 13 points

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

Strategy after playing DOCKS

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DOCKS:

28% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
13% chance
Suggested:
STALE
8% chance
Suggested:
TALER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

28.2%
RAILE 6.28 bits
13.5%
STALE 5.72 bits
8.1%
TALER 5.21 bits
7.3%
TIARE 5.57 bits
5.9%
RAILE 5.57 bits
5.3%
TALER 4.57 bits
2.6%
PEART 4.27 bits
2.5%
ARIEL 5.02 bits
2.0%
URITE 3.95 bits
1.8%
SPARE 4.78 bits

Research on DOCKS

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

Optimal play

Opening with DOCKS, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,358 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.88 guesses at best and is rank #3,663 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.72, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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 DAHKS.

Rhymes with ROCKS SOCKS LOCKS MOCKS JOCKS

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, DOCKS is a kind of enclosure or herb.

Synonyms bob tail pier WHARF

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DOCKS sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 4 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (4.2 of 5).

In a sentence

What were you doing by the docks?
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)
Tom is coming to the docks.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).