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

HYDEL

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

As an opener, it rules out about 92.4% of possible answers.

Meaning and pronunciation

Adjective

hydroelectric

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 HYDEL performs as a guess

Wordle accepts HYDEL 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 82.5% of games, misses completely in 17.5%, and leaves about 180 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #7,219 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.71 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 HYDEL 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.

4.55 Entropy (bits)
180 Avg remaining
0.0% Exact match
92.4% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 55% of evaluated openers
1.39 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How HYDEL 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.

3.71 Avg guesses
100% Solved within six
0.69 Spread of game lengths
#7,219 Rank among openers
Opening with HYDEL solved every answer in the snapshot within six guesses. A spread of 0.69 means those games clustered within about 0.69 of a guess of the 3.71 average. It ranks #7,219 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
0
2 guesses
51
3 guesses
832
4 guesses
1,245
5 guesses
209
6 guesses
17
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
1 vowels
Common:
EL

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
82%
Green tile
24%
All gray
18%

Feedback distribution

HYDEL can come back 84 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

416 answers
336 answers
158 answers
158 answers
148 answers
148 answers
118 answers
76 answers
75 answers
64 answers
62 answers
60 answers
36 answers
35 answers
33 answers
29 answers
25 answers
25 answers
25 answers
20 answers
16 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
15 answers
14 answers
14 answers
13 answers
13 answers

Letter-value totals

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

Scrabble

H4Y4D2E1L1
Total: 12 points

Words With Friends

Total: 11 points

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

Strategy after playing HYDEL

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

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing HYDEL:

18% chance
Suggested:
TRAIN
14% chance
Suggested:
ROAST
7% chance
Suggested:
SONAR

Follow-ups for common patterns

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

17.5%
TRAIN 6.23 bits
14.2%
ROAST 5.63 bits
6.7%
SONAR 4.66 bits
6.7%
SAUNT 4.91 bits
6.2%
COAST 5.14 bits
6.2%
TORCH 5.29 bits
5.0%
BLASE 4.58 bits
3.2%
SONAR 4.55 bits
3.2%
DRAIN 5.21 bits
2.7%
CARTE 4.84 bits

Research on HYDEL

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

Optimal play

Opening with HYDEL, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.71 guesses and ranks #5,614 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 HYDEL can guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.71, at or below the proven-optimal 3.71, 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 HYDUHL. Estimated pronunciation

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

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
HYDEL 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); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD), with machine estimates from the g2p_en model; Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0).