5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess F tier for first-turn info

DOWDY

Yes, DOWDY was the Wordle answer on May 13, 2026 (Wordle #1789).

As an opener, it rules out about 76.8% of possible answers.

Open Solver with DOWDY Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈdaʊdi/

Adjective

Plain and unfashionable in style or dress.

Adjective

Lacking stylishness or neatness; shabby.

Noun

A plain or shabby person.

Verb

To press the crust into the filling during baking, to allow the juices to caramelize on top.

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: May 13, 2026 (#1789).

See the full page for that puzzle: May 13, 2026 (#1789).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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How DOWDY performs as a guess

DOWDY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 55.5% of games, misses completely in 44.5%, and leaves about 550 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #14,118 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.91 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

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

D___Y D in the 1st position and Y in the 5th position D__D_ D in the 1st position and D in the 4th position _O__Y O in the 2nd position and Y in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in DOWDY.

First-turn measures

All four describe DOWDY 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.

3.21 Entropy (bits)
550 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
76.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 3% of evaluated openers
2.73 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DOWDY 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.

3.91 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.74 Spread of game lengths
#14,118 Rank among openers
Opening with DOWDY left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.74 means those games clustered within about 0.74 of a guess of the 3.91 average. It ranks #14,118 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
36
3 guesses
618
4 guesses
1,240
5 guesses
435
6 guesses
23
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
1 vowels
Common:
O

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
56%
Green tile
29%
All gray
44%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S C O L D
D O D G Y
D O W D Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches DOWDY in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

DOWDY can come back 62 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

1057 answers
289 answers
214 answers
162 answers
118 answers
92 answers
46 answers
43 answers
36 answers
31 answers
28 answers
24 answers
23 answers
20 answers
18 answers
16 answers
15 answers
10 answers
9 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
5 answers
5 answers
4 answers
4 answers
4 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2O1W4D2Y4
Total: 13 points

Words With Friends

Total: 12 points

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

Try next

RAISE SATER SLART CRUET ARIEL TARSE

Strategy after playing DOWDY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DOWDY:

45% chance
Suggested:
RAISE
12% chance
Suggested:
SATER
9% chance
Suggested:
SLART

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

44.5% →
RAISE 6.16 bits
12.2% →
SATER 5.28 bits
9.0% →
SLART 4.79 bits
6.8% →
CRUET 4.88 bits
5.0% →
ARIEL 5.36 bits
3.9% →
TARSE 5.50 bits
1.9% →
SABLE 3.63 bits
1.8% →
IRATE 4.76 bits
1.5% →
SLANE 4.54 bits
1.3% →
CRANE 4.10 bits

Research on DOWDY

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

Optimal play

Opening with DOWDY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.90 guesses and ranks #13,800 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 DOWDY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.91; proven optimal play reaches 3.90. 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.

How it sounds

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it DOWDEE.

Rhymes with ROWDY HOWDY

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, DOWDY is a kind of pastry.

Opposites stylish fashionable

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DOWDY 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.

In a sentence

Her clothes were clean but dowdy.
© tatoeba.org contributor farinello (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).