DODGY
Yes, DODGY was the Wordle answer on December 15, 2025 (Wordle #1640).
As an opener, it rules out about 79.2% of possible answers.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈdɒd͡ʒ.i/
- Adjective
-
Evasive and shifty.
“Asked why, a spokesman gave a dodgy answer about legal ramifications.”
- Adjective
-
Unsound and unreliable.
“Never listen to dodgy advice.”
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
YesIncluded in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.
Possible answer
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: December 15, 2025 (#1640).
See the full page for that puzzle: December 15, 2025 (#1640).
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 →How DODGY performs as a guess
DODGY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 58.0% of games, misses completely in 42.0%, and leaves about 493 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #12,884 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.84 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 DODGY 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 DODGY 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 DODGY in 3 guesses.
Feedback distribution
DODGY can come back 73 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 DODGY; 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 DODGY
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to DODGY.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing DODGY:
Research on DODGY
Game-tree analysis and word research for DODGY, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with DODGY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.85 guesses and ranks #12,788 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 DODGY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.84, at or below the proven-optimal 3.85, 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
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it DAHJEE. Estimated pronunciation
This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- DODGY sits in the intermediate band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 2 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word most readers meet regularly.
- Age of acquisition
- Typically learned around age 8, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
- Imageability
- Imageability score: 39 of 100. Raters found it difficult to picture.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (2.5 of 5).
In a sentence
The used car salesman seemed a bit dodgy to me.
That website seems a bit dodgy, I wouldn't enter your credit card information there.
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); Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).