Accepted guess Not a possible answer B tier for first-turn info

DROIL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 94.7% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /dɹɔɪl/

Verb

To work sluggishly or slowly; to plod.

Noun

A drudge; a minion or servile worker.

Noun

hard work; toil or drudgery.

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 DROIL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DROIL 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 85.6% of games, misses completely in 14.4%, and leaves about 126 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #361 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.58 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.

First-turn measures

All four describe DROIL 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.

5.14 Entropy (bits)
126 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
94.7% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 90% of evaluated openers
0.81 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DROIL 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.

3.58 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#361 Rank among openers
Opening with DROIL left 2 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.68 means those games clustered within about 0.68 of a guess of the 3.58 average. It ranks #361 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
59
3 guesses
1,052
4 guesses
1,080
5 guesses
146
6 guesses
15
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

5/5 unique
2 vowels
Common:
ILOR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
86%
Green tile
34%
All gray
14%

Feedback distribution

DROIL can come back 113 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

342 answers
212 answers
196 answers
169 answers
115 answers
105 answers
90 answers
81 answers
67 answers
57 answers
53 answers
52 answers
47 answers
42 answers
42 answers
41 answers
40 answers
38 answers
30 answers
24 answers
20 answers
20 answers
19 answers
19 answers
18 answers
18 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2R1O1I1L1
Total: 6 points

Words With Friends

Total: 7 points

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

Strategy after playing DROIL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DROIL:

14% chance
Suggested:
STANE
9% chance
Suggested:
SETAE
8% chance
Suggested:
SPACE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

14.4%
STANE 6.13 bits
8.9%
SETAE 5.50 bits
8.3%
SPACE 5.52 bits
7.1%
SIENT 5.46 bits
4.8%
CASTE 5.22 bits
4.4%
TARRE 4.63 bits
3.8%
CASTE 5.14 bits
3.4%
SPATE 4.53 bits
2.8%
SIENT 4.25 bits
2.4%
SIENT 4.33 bits

Research on DROIL

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

Optimal play

Opening with DROIL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.62 guesses and ranks #614 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 DROIL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.58, at or below the proven-optimal 3.62, 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.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it DROYL. Estimated pronunciation

This pronunciation is machine-estimated, not taken from a pronunciation dictionary.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model.