DOWEL
Yes, DOWEL was the Wordle answer on May 11, 2025 (Wordle #1422).
Meaning and pronunciation
Pronunciation: /ˈdaʊəl/
- Noun
-
A pin, or block, of wood or metal, fitting into holes in the abutting portions of two pieces, and being partly in one piece and partly in the other, to keep them in their proper relative position.
- Noun
-
A wooden rod, as one to make short pins from.
- Verb
-
To fasten together with dowels.
- Verb
-
To furnish with dowels.
“A cooper dowels pieces for the head of a cask.”
Alternative forms: doul
Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.
Etymology
From Middle English dowle, dule, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Old French doelle (“the hollow part of a tool where the handle is”), from Frankish *duli (“hollow tube, pipe”), from Proto-Germanic *dulją (“pipe”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰel- (“curvature, hollow”). If so, then cognate with French douelle, douille.
Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)
How it sounds
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it DOWUHL.
In a sentence
This tooth has a dowel crown.
Use DOWEL in a puzzle
As an opener, it rules out about 92.5% 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
YesIncluded among the answers considered by the solver.
Past Wordle answer
Used oncePast Wordle answer: May 11, 2025 (#1422).
See the full page for that puzzle: May 11, 2025 (#1422).
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 DOWEL performs as a guess
DOWEL is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,384 when every answer is treated as equally likely.
Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 81.7% of games, misses completely in 18.3%, and leaves about 178 possible answers on average.
In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,662 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 DOWEL 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 DOWEL 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
Example solver route
One example route used by the solver.
This solver benchmark reaches DOWEL in 4 guesses.
Feedback distribution
DOWEL can come back 102 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 DOWEL; 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 DOWEL
What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to DOWEL.
Quick reference
Largest feedback groups after playing DOWEL:
Research on DOWEL
Game-tree analysis and word research for DOWEL, with an explanation for each figure.
Optimal play
Opening with DOWEL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.67 guesses and ranks #3,123 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 DOWEL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.
Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.67, 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.
Familiarity and learning
- Frequency
- DOWEL 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 (4.4 of 5).
Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).