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

DONNE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 91.0% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /dʌn/

Proper noun

A surname, notably held by John Donne, English poet

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 DONNE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DONNE 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 78.5% of games, misses completely in 21.5%, and leaves about 214 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,461 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 DONNE 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.

4.47 Entropy (bits)
214 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
91.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 50% of evaluated openers
1.48 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DONNE 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#7,461 Rank among openers
Opening with DONNE left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.71 average. It ranks #7,461 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
50
3 guesses
845
4 guesses
1,210
5 guesses
229
6 guesses
18
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

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ENO

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
78%
Green tile
42%
All gray
22%

Feedback distribution

DONNE can come back 87 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

510 answers
335 answers
230 answers
172 answers
124 answers
85 answers
69 answers
61 answers
58 answers
56 answers
46 answers
41 answers
39 answers
38 answers
33 answers
29 answers
29 answers
27 answers
25 answers
25 answers
20 answers
20 answers
17 answers
15 answers
15 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2O1N1N1E1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 8 points

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

Strategy after playing DONNE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DONNE:

21% chance
Suggested:
SLART
14% chance
Suggested:
SLART
10% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

21.5%
SLART 6.06 bits
14.1%
SLART 5.58 bits
9.7%
SLART 5.37 bits
7.2%
SLART 5.21 bits
5.2%
SALTY 4.52 bits
3.6%
SAULT 4.93 bits
2.9%
LATER 4.54 bits
2.6%
LURID 4.69 bits
2.4%
ARIEL 4.55 bits
2.4%
SATIN 4.99 bits

Research on DONNE

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

Optimal play

Opening with DONNE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.75 guesses and ranks #7,895 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 DONNE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.75, 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 DUHN.

Rhymes with BEGUN TONNE RERUN

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DONNE 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 frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).