DOUSE
DOUSE is accepted as a guess but is not on the solver's possible-answer list.
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /daʊs/
- Verb
-
To plunge suddenly into water; to duck; to immerse.
- Verb
-
To fall suddenly into water.
- Noun
-
A sudden plunging into water.
- Noun
-
A blow or strike, especially to the face.
Alternative forms: dowse, douze, douce, dause
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English duschen, dusshen (“to rush, fall”), related to Norwegian dusa (“to break, cast down from”), Old Dutch doesen (“to beat, strike”), dialectal German tusen, dusen (“to strike, run against, collide”), Saterland Frisian dössen (“to strike”). Compare doss, dust.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
One syllable Say it DOWS.
Rhymes with HOUSE MOUSE ROUSE GAUSS LOUSE
Related meanings
Synonyms duck dip soak dunk plunge
In a sentence
The rain wasn't heavy enough to douse the fire.
You can douse a grease fire by covering the pan with a lid.
Use DOUSE in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 94.7% of possible answers.
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
NoThe solver does not currently treat this as a possible answer.
Past Wordle answer
No completed appearanceNo 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.
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See what the public sample says →How DOUSE performs as a guess
Wordle accepts DOUSE 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 86.9% of games, misses completely in 13.1%, and leaves about 127 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,179 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 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 DOUSE 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 DOUSE 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
Feedback distribution
DOUSE can come back 104 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 DOUSE; 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 DOUSE
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to DOUSE.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing DOUSE:
Research on DOUSE
Game-tree analysis and word research for DOUSE, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with DOUSE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.66 guesses and ranks #2,239 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 DOUSE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.67; proven optimal play reaches 3.66. The fixed strategy accounts for the difference.
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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- DOUSE 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.
- Dominant sense
- Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.5 of 5).
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).