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

DRYAD

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

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈdɹaɪəd//ˈdɹaɪˌæd/

Noun

A female tree spirit; a woodnymph or tree nymph.

Noun

Any of the dryas plants, especially the plant mountain avens.

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

Use DRYAD in a puzzle

As an opener, it rules out about 88.8% of possible answers.

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 DRYAD performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DRYAD 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 75.6% of games, misses completely in 24.4%, and leaves about 265 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,441 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.80 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 DRYAD 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.

4.08 Entropy (bits)
265 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
88.8% Avg ruled out

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DRYAD 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.

3.80 Avg guesses
99.92% Solved within six
0.72 Spread of game lengths
#11,441 Rank among openers
Opening with DRYAD 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 3.80 average. It ranks #11,441 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
43
3 guesses
750
4 guesses
1,230
5 guesses
304
6 guesses
25

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
AR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
76%
Green tile
25%
All gray
24%

Feedback distribution

DRYAD can come back 73 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

580 answers
370 answers
268 answers
163 answers
132 answers
121 answers
75 answers
69 answers
59 answers
49 answers
43 answers
39 answers
35 answers
30 answers
25 answers
21 answers
18 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
11 answers
8 answers
8 answers
8 answers
7 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2R1Y4A1D2
Total: 10 points

Words With Friends

Total: 9 points

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

Strategy after playing DRYAD

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DRYAD:

24% chance
Suggested:
TOILE
16% chance
Suggested:
SLANE
11% chance
Suggested:
TOISE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

24.4%
TOILE 6.13 bits
15.6%
SLANE 5.53 bits
11.3%
TOISE 5.37 bits
6.9%
SPILE 4.61 bits
5.6%
SATEM 4.63 bits
5.1%
CONTE 4.84 bits
3.2%
CLOTE 4.65 bits
2.9%
SLANT 4.29 bits
2.5%
CONTE 3.90 bits
2.1%
TUILE 4.57 bits

Research on DRYAD

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

Optimal play

Opening with DRYAD, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.80 guesses and ranks #10,825 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 DRYAD can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.80, 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
DRYAD 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.

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).