DYING

Meaning

To stop living; to become dead; to undergo death.

• verbTo colour with dye, or as if with dye.
• nounThe process of approaching death; loss of life; less precisely, death.
• noun(with "the") Those who are currently expiring, moribund.

DYING as a word-puzzle answer

DYING is a 5-letter word with 1 vowel (I) and 4 consonants (D, Y, N, G). Every letter is distinct, so it rarely punishes a clean opening guess.

It leans on high-frequency letters (I, N), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.

DYING by the numbers

Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, I appears in 29% of answers (the 6th most common letter), N appears in 24% of answers (the 9th most common letter), D appears in 19% of answers (the 11th most common letter). No other answer in the bank opens with “DY-”, so locking those first two letters all but gives it away.

Difficulty: 2/5 — approachable, because its letters are common and no close neighbors compete with it.

Near misses

One letter away in the answer bank: TYING, LYING, DOING. Each of these turns four tiles green against DYING — the classic endgame squeeze where spending a guess on the differing letter beats burning attempts on hope.

Put it to use

Words like DYING are exactly what the daily puzzles throw at you. Warm up in Practice, race the clock in the Daily Challenge, or study the best starting words before your next run. New to the multi-board modes? The mode guides cover all nine.