5 FiveLetterWords
Accepted guess Not a possible answer C tier for first-turn info

DREAR

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /dɹɪə//dɹɪɚ//dɹɪɹ/

Adjective

Dreary.

Noun

Gloom; sadness.

Alternative forms: dreare

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Etymology

Back-formation from dreary. Compare greed.

Source: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA)

Related meanings

Synonyms SORRY blue dark grim gloomy dismal

Opposites cheerful

Use DREAR in a puzzle

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

Open Solver with DREAR Open Word Finder

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

No completed appearance

No 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.

DREAR in Connections

1 recorded appearance in completed main-edition puzzles through . A category label alone does not establish a word's meaning.

How DREAR performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DREAR 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 82.2% of games, misses completely in 17.8%, and leaves about 170 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,078 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.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

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

D___R D in the 1st position and R in the 5th position D__A_ D in the 1st position and A in the 4th position _R__R R in the 2nd position and R in the 5th position

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

First-turn measures

All four describe DREAR 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.

4.78 Entropy (bits)
170 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.9% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DREAR 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
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#7,078 Rank among openers
Opening with DREAR left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.72 means those games clustered within about 0.72 of a guess of the 3.70 average. It ranks #7,078 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
66
3 guesses
851
4 guesses
1,166
5 guesses
252
6 guesses
17

Composition

4/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
AER

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
33%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

DREAR can come back 97 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

425 answers
274 answers
256 answers
165 answers
92 answers
87 answers
77 answers
76 answers
72 answers
61 answers
54 answers
50 answers
44 answers
39 answers
35 answers
34 answers
33 answers
31 answers
27 answers
23 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2R1E1A1R1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 6 points

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

Try next

SOILY SLANT TOILE STALE SHORT SIREE

Strategy after playing DREAR

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DREAR:

18% chance
Suggested:
SOILY
11% chance
Suggested:
SLANT
11% chance
Suggested:
TOILE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.8% →
SOILY 5.71 bits
11.5% →
SLANT 5.33 bits
10.7% →
TOILE 5.47 bits
6.9% →
STALE 4.96 bits
3.9% →
SHORT 5.18 bits
3.6% →
SIREE 4.74 bits
3.2% →
PRINT 4.07 bits
3.2% →
SOILY 3.53 bits
3.0% →
SLEET 4.95 bits
2.6% →
CHART 3.97 bits

Research on DREAR

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

Optimal play

Opening with DREAR, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.74 guesses and ranks #7,358 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 DREAR can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.70, at or below the proven-optimal 3.74, 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
DREAR sits in the rare band of the wordfreq scale, appearing less than once per million words of written English; the band marks it as a word few players will have met in print.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).