5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier opener

DOWSE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.9% of possible answers.

Open Solver with DOWSE Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /daʊs//daʊz/

Verb

Alternative form of douse (“to plunge into water”).

Verb

Alternative form of douse (“to strike”).

Noun

Alternative form of douse (“strike”).

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 DOWSE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DOWSE 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 82.5% of games, misses completely in 17.5%, and leaves about 167 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete v5 benchmark, it ranks #7,040 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.70 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___E D in the 1st position and E in the 5th position D__S_ D in the 1st position and S in the 4th position _O__E O in the 2nd position and E in the 5th position

Try next

CAIRN LATER RAILE SLANT ACTOR CLARY
Words starting with D Words ending with E

First-turn measures

4.74 Entropy (bits)
167 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.9% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 68% of evaluated openers
1.21 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opener: v5 benchmark

How DOWSE 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.

3.70 Avg guesses
100.0% Win rate
0.69 Volatility
#7,040 v5 opener rank
In the complete v5 snapshot, DOWSE ranks #7,040 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
63
3 guesses
817
4 guesses
1,242
5 guesses
218
6 guesses
13
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
EOS

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
37%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

96 possible patterns. Top outcomes:

412
307
174
167
157
116
68
61
60
60
57
50
34
33
32
32
30
30
30
29
23
22
18
18
18
17
16
16
16
14

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DOWSE:

17% chance
Suggested:
CAIRN
13% chance
Suggested:
LATER
7% chance
Suggested:
RAILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.5% →
CAIRN 5.90 bits
13.0% →
LATER 5.48 bits
7.4% →
RAILE 4.45 bits
7.1% →
SLANT 5.12 bits
6.7% →
ACTOR 5.10 bits
4.9% →
CLARY 4.53 bits
2.9% →
STEER 4.58 bits
2.6% →
SHART 4.35 bits
2.5% →
SLART 3.93 bits
2.5% →
LURID 4.70 bits

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2O1W4S1E1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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