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

DOTAL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈdəʊtəl/

Adjective

Pertaining to dower, or a woman's marriage portion; constituting or comprised in dower.

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 DOTAL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DOTAL 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 85.8% of games, misses completely in 14.2%, and leaves about 126 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #150 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.56 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 DOTAL 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.

5.12 Entropy (bits)
126 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 89% of evaluated openers
0.82 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DOTAL 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.

3.56 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#150 Rank among openers
Opening with DOTAL 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 3.56 average. It ranks #150 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
79
3 guesses
1,042
4 guesses
1,073
5 guesses
148
6 guesses
10
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
2 vowels
Common:
ALOT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
29%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

DOTAL can come back 121 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

336 answers
243 answers
169 answers
134 answers
123 answers
117 answers
106 answers
105 answers
65 answers
58 answers
53 answers
45 answers
43 answers
40 answers
40 answers
37 answers
36 answers
30 answers
29 answers
29 answers
29 answers
28 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
20 answers
19 answers
14 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2O1T1A1L1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing DOTAL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DOTAL:

14% chance
Suggested:
SIREN
10% chance
Suggested:
CARSE
7% chance
Suggested:
SHIER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.2%
SIREN 6.08 bits
10.2%
CARSE 5.48 bits
7.1%
SHIER 5.65 bits
5.6%
SLICE 5.01 bits
5.2%
CRINE 5.38 bits
4.9%
SHIRE 4.86 bits
4.5%
SPALE 4.73 bits
4.4%
CRUSE 4.69 bits
2.7%
URINE 5.04 bits
2.4%
SENOR 4.46 bits

Research on DOTAL

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

Optimal play

Opening with DOTAL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.62 guesses and ranks #555 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 DOTAL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.56, at or below the proven-optimal 3.62, 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 DOHTUHL. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.