Possible answer Not used yet F tier for first-turn info

DRYLY

DRYLY is on the solver's possible-answer list but has not appeared as a Wordle answer yet.

As an opener, it rules out about 87.3% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /ˈdɹaɪ.li/

Adverb

In a dry manner.

Alternative forms: drily

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

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

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 DRYLY performs as a guess

DRYLY is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 73.5% of games, misses completely in 26.5%, and leaves about 300 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #11,781 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 DRYLY 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.

3.80 Entropy (bits)
300 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
87.3% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 15% of evaluated openers
2.14 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DRYLY 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
0.68 Spread of game lengths
#11,781 Rank among openers
Opening with DRYLY 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 3.80 average. It ranks #11,781 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
31
3 guesses
713
4 guesses
1,305
5 guesses
287
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

4/5 unique
0 vowels
Common:
LR

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
74%
Green tile
34%
All gray
26%

Example solver route

R O A T E
S L I C K
D R Y L Y

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches DRYLY in 3 guesses.

Feedback distribution

DRYLY can come back 60 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

629 answers
361 answers
314 answers
178 answers
156 answers
92 answers
82 answers
71 answers
51 answers
39 answers
38 answers
32 answers
32 answers
31 answers
29 answers
29 answers
23 answers
19 answers
12 answers
11 answers
11 answers
10 answers
10 answers
9 answers
7 answers
7 answers
7 answers
6 answers
6 answers
6 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2R1Y4L1Y4
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing DRYLY

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DRYLY:

26% chance
Suggested:
SAINE
15% chance
Suggested:
STOAE
13% chance
Suggested:
SAICE

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

26.5%
SAINE 6.26 bits
15.2%
STOAE 5.43 bits
13.2%
SAICE 5.45 bits
7.5%
COATE 5.20 bits
6.6%
SAUNT 4.78 bits
3.9%
SAINE 5.26 bits
3.5%
SAUTE 4.88 bits
3.0%
CLEAR 4.40 bits
2.1%
TARRE 4.31 bits
1.6%
AINEE 4.51 bits

Research on DRYLY

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

Optimal play

Opening with DRYLY, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.84 guesses and ranks #12,494 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 DRYLY can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.80, at or below the proven-optimal 3.84, 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

Two syllables, stress on the first syllable Say it DRYLEE.

Rhymes with RILEY KYLIE SLYLY SHYLY WRYLY

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
DRYLY 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.

In a sentence

The barfly dryly brushes off suitors.
© tatoeba.org contributor papabear (CC BY 2.0 FR)

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).