The fourth letter of the modern Greek alphabet Δ, δ.
A landform at the mouth of a river where it empties into a body of water.
To calculate the differences between the characters in an enciphered text and the characters a fixed number of positions previous.
To compare two versions of the same file in order to determine where they differ (where a programmer has made edits).
DELTA is a 5-letter word with 2 vowels (E, A) and 3 consonants (D, L, T). Every letter is distinct, so it rarely punishes a clean opening guess.
It leans on high-frequency letters (E, T, A), 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 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, E appears in 50% of answers (the 1st most common letter), A appears in 40% of answers (the 2nd most common letter), T appears in 30% of answers (the 4th most common letter). 20 other answers share the opening “DE-”, so two purple tiles up front still leave real guessing to do.
Difficulty: 1/5 — very approachable, because its letters are common and no close neighbors compete with it.
Same letters, different order: DEALT — amber-heavy boards can be hiding this anagram instead.
Words like DELTA 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 every mode.
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.
