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

DWALE

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

As an opener, it rules out about 93.8% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /dweɪl/

Noun

Belladonna or a similar soporific plant.

Noun

A bugbear.

Verb

To mutter deliriously.

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 DWALE performs as a guess

Wordle accepts DWALE 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 82.7% of games, misses completely in 17.3%, and leaves about 148 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #4,241 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.66 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 DWALE 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.

4.98 Entropy (bits)
148 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
93.8% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 83% of evaluated openers
0.96 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How DWALE 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.

3.66 Avg guesses
99.96% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#4,241 Rank among openers
Opening with DWALE left 1 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.66 average. It ranks #4,241 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
72
3 guesses
893
4 guesses
1,165
5 guesses
215
6 guesses
8
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:
AEL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
83%
Green tile
37%
All gray
17%

Feedback distribution

DWALE can come back 107 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

410 answers
225 answers
205 answers
168 answers
112 answers
90 answers
83 answers
81 answers
70 answers
52 answers
44 answers
44 answers
43 answers
42 answers
40 answers
40 answers
35 answers
30 answers
28 answers
27 answers
27 answers
23 answers
22 answers
19 answers
17 answers
16 answers
16 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

D2W4A1L1E1
Total: 9 points

Words With Friends

Total: 10 points

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

Strategy after playing DWALE

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing DWALE:

17% chance
Suggested:
HOIST
9% chance
Suggested:
RESET
9% chance
Suggested:
CARAT

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.3%
HOIST 5.98 bits
9.5%
RESET 5.36 bits
8.6%
CARAT 5.04 bits
7.1%
SIREN 4.68 bits
4.7%
CLOUT 4.64 bits
3.8%
SHART 4.74 bits
3.5%
SONAR 4.55 bits
3.4%
TAPER 4.41 bits
2.9%
LEPER 4.38 bits
2.2%
SHART 3.58 bits

Research on DWALE

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

Optimal play

Opening with DWALE, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.68 guesses and ranks #3,173 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 DWALE can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.66, at or below the proven-optimal 3.68, 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 DWAYL. 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.