5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer F tier opener

DOWDS

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

As an opener, it rules out about 81.1% of possible answers.

Open Solver with DOWDS Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Noun

plural of dowd

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 DOWDS performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DOWDS 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 62.1% of games, misses completely in 37.9%, and leaves about 446 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete v5 benchmark, it ranks #13,245 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.85 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.

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

D___S D in the 1st position and S in the 5th position D__D_ D in the 1st position and D in the 4th position _O__S O in the 2nd position and S in the 5th position

Try next

RAILE STALE TALER CARTE ARIEL PEART
Words starting with D Words ending with S

First-turn measures

3.40 Entropy (bits)
446 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
81.1% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 5% of evaluated openers
2.55 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opener: v5 benchmark

How DOWDS 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.

3.85 Avg guesses
99.9% Win rate
0.71 Volatility
#13,245 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, DOWDS ranks #13,245 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
35
3 guesses
661
4 guesses
1,283
5 guesses
356
6 guesses
17
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.45 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
OS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
62%
Green tile
20%
All gray
38%

Feedback distribution

57 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

893
379
223
162
108
78
64
64
46
36
29
27
25
24
20
18
14
10
10
9
9
9
8
8
8
6
6
6
5
5

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DOWDS:

38% chance
Suggested:
RAILE
16% chance
Suggested:
STALE
9% chance
Suggested:
TALER

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

37.9% →
RAILE 6.18 bits
16.1% →
STALE 5.63 bits
9.5% →
TALER 5.19 bits
6.9% →
CARTE 4.81 bits
4.6% →
ARIEL 5.42 bits
3.3% →
PEART 4.25 bits
2.7% →
TRACE 5.32 bits
2.7% →
IRATE 5.05 bits
2.0% →
URITE 3.95 bits
1.5% →
SHIER 4.50 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2O1W4D2S1
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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