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

DOTER

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈdəʊtə(ɹ)/

Noun

Synonym of dotard (“old person with impaired intellect”).

Noun

Synonym of dotard (“one who dotes on another, showing excessive fondness”).

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Use DOTER in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 95.3% of possible answers.

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

No completed appearance

No 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.

How DOTER performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DOTER 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 85.9% of games, misses completely in 14.1%, and leaves about 111 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #746 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.59 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 DOTER 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.

5.34 Entropy (bits)
111 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
95.3% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DOTER 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.

3.59 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#746 Rank among openers
Opening with DOTER left 1 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 3.59 average. It ranks #746 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
82
3 guesses
987
4 guesses
1,106
5 guesses
165
6 guesses
13

Composition

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EORT

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
33%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

DOTER can come back 126 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

335 answers
214 answers
129 answers
128 answers
117 answers
103 answers
93 answers
74 answers
69 answers
62 answers
58 answers
51 answers
50 answers
49 answers
42 answers
41 answers
37 answers
37 answers
33 answers
26 answers
25 answers
24 answers
24 answers
23 answers
21 answers
21 answers
21 answers
20 answers
19 answers
18 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2O1T1E1R1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Strategy after playing DOTER

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DOTER:

14% chance
Suggested:
SLAIN
9% chance
Suggested:
SLANE
5% chance
Suggested:
SAINT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.1% →
SLAIN 5.97 bits
9.0% →
SLANE 5.47 bits
5.4% →
SAINT 5.50 bits
5.4% →
SAUCY 5.03 bits
4.9% →
CEASE 4.72 bits
4.3% →
SHALT 5.19 bits
3.9% →
SALON 5.14 bits
3.1% →
PAISE 3.40 bits
2.9% →
SHALY 4.17 bits
2.6% →
SAINT 4.56 bits

Research on DOTER

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

Optimal play

Opening with DOTER, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.60 guesses and ranks #131 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 DOTER can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.59, at or below the proven-optimal 3.60, 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT).