5 Letter Words Starting With D

How to find a five-letter word that starts with a D

Looking for 5 letter words that start with D to solve a Wordle? The finder above already has D in the first green box; add your other clues.

A real example from our word list: the answer is DRILL, and all you know is that it starts with D, which leaves 78 common words. Open with DEITY, the guess that splits this set most evenly.

Guess 1: DEITY D and I are green, and the rest are grey. That leaves 3 possible answers: doing, drink and drill.

Guess 2: DRINK D, R and I are green, and the rest are grey. That leaves 1 possible answer.

Guess 3: DRILL All five letters are green. Solved in 3.

What comes after D?

In common words that start with D, the second letter is most often E (27%), R (24%) and O (18%). 72% have a vowel second, so if your consonant guesses keep missing, try A, E, I, O or U in the second spot.

About 5 letter words starting with D

D words split fairly evenly between a vowel second (daily, death, doubt) and the pair DR, which starts dream, drink, drive and dress. DW is the only other D pair you'll meet, and it's rare: dwarf and dwell. A fair number of D words double a letter, like daddy, dizzy and dolly, and a few repeat the D itself, such as dodge and dread. That matters in Wordle: if you've placed D first and a yellow letter won't fit anywhere, try it twice. D is worth only 2 points in Scrabble, so the high scorers here rely on other letters, like Z in dozen or dizzy.

D ranks 8th out of 26 as a first letter for 5 letter words.

Word families that start with D

D words have two main families. DR words include draft, drain, drama, drawn, dried, drift, drill, drone and drown. DE and DO words include debut, decay, delay, demon, depth and donor. Many D words end in Y, like dairy, daisy, dirty and dusty, so if you have D first and the last spot is open, Y is worth a guess. A few start with DW, like dwarf and dwell, which catches people out because DW is so rare. D words are also common answers in crossword puzzles, where diary and digit turn up often. For more D words by position, see 5 letter words with D.

Vowels in 5 letter words starting with D

E is the most common vowel here, appearing in 51% of the common words, followed by I (33%) and O (33%). The least common is U (10%).

33% have just one vowel, like drink, dress, dying and draft. At the other end, diode has three or more.

Nouns, verbs and adjectives

By main meaning (WordNet), there are 51 nouns, 14 verbs, 10 adjectives and 2 adverbs.

Nouns include death, dance and dream. Verbs include drive, drink and dress. Adjectives include drunk, dirty and drawn. Adverbs include daily and dolce.

Best Wordle guesses that start with D

Top guesses, with the average number of the 78 common words each leaves: DEITY (5.5), DRONE (5.7), DINER (5.8), DRAIN (6.6) and DIARY (6.7).

36% repeat a letter, and 11 have a double letter, like dress, daddy, drill and donna.

Highest-scoring 5 letter words starting with D in Scrabble

Top common words: dizzy (27), dazed (16) and dozen (15). All valid words: dizzy (27), doozy (18) and ditzy (18). 23 words reach 15 points or more.