Word of the Day · Friday, January 16, 2026
adjective
Like a debutante.
DEBBY is a 5-letter word with 1 vowel (E) and 4 consonants (D, B, B, Y). It repeats 1 letter, which is a classic trap — guessers who assume five distinct letters get stuck.
It leans on high-frequency letters (E), 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.
Across the 2,412 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, E appears in 48% of answers (the 1st most common letter), D appears in 19% of answers (the 12th most common letter), Y appears in 17% of answers (the 13th most common letter). 24 other answers share the opening “DE-”, so two green tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.
Difficulty: 2/5 — approachable, because the repeated letter hides one position.
One letter away in the answer bank: DERBY. Each of these turns four tiles green against DEBBY — the classic endgame squeeze where spending a guess on the differing letter beats burning attempts on hope.
Words like DEBBY 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.
Definitions adapted from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA). Letter statistics, difficulty ratings, and near-miss analysis are original Wordocious research computed from our curated answer list.