What are the best Wordle starting words? (2023)

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Choose one of the best Wordle starting words and keep your streak

What are the best Wordle starting words? (1)

(Image: © New York Times)

(Video) Winning Wordle: The Best Starting Words To Use and Why | Mashable

Every serious speller needs the best Wordle starting words to keep up with the viral puzzle game. There's quite a bit of thought that goes into which words are technically and scientifically the best to start off with, from linguistic studies to pattern analysis.

It's fair to say that Wordle is distracting everyone in 2022; with near-endless variants and permutations, the Wordle formula is already a classic. The format is so prolific that we even wrote our own guide on how to make your own Wordle app. We've also got a list of games like Wordle if you want even more brain teasers to challenge your friends.

Like any great puzzler, Wordle is as simple as it is elegant. Yes, it can be frustrating at times, but the happy brain chemicals that Wordle helps release always bring us back the next day.We'll help you figure out how to win Wordle every day with our handy guide to the best starting words.

(Video) Oh, wait, actually the best Wordle opener is not “crane”…

When it comes to approaching each daily challenge, some words are just better at revealing the letters you need.Get ready to commit Wordle's best starting words to memory.

Best Wordle starting words

Wordle best starting words: Guess using linguistics

Some wordle crowd favorites consist of ‘adieu’ and ‘about’ because you get to use at least three vowels. More popular are ‘canoe’ and ‘audio,’ so these are solid bets as it’s always a good first guess to check what vowels you’ll be working with throughout the puzzle. Other words you can choose for this are:

  • Ouija
  • Equal
  • Queue

However, you can take a slightly different approach based on linguistic science. There are 26 letters in the alphabet, but they don’t all appear in the English language equally. The letter ‘E’, for example, is more common than the latter ‘A’.

If you use words like ‘slice’ or ‘crane’, you have a higher chance of finding a few of the day’s letters than with words like ‘jumbo’. Looking at letter frequency is a technique cryptographers use when trying to crack simple codes, and, handily, they’ve shared their findings (opens in new tab) on letter frequencies in the English language

You can go even deeper on linguistic tactics - clearly, linguistic researchers love Wordle as much as the rest of us. Some super words will give you a high probability of a quick win, or at least a better shot at success.

(Video) The best Wordle strategy – according to science

According to postdoctoral student David Sidhu (opens in new tab), one of the best words you can choose is ‘samey’.

It includes letters that not only appear with a high frequency in English words but the letters also fall in the correct places. ‘Y’, for instance, in five-letter words, most often will appear at the end of the word.

Wordle starting words: what not to do

What are the best Wordle starting words? (3)

If you want successful first tries, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re not using duplicate letters in your early guesses.

The faster you can discover letters in the solution - and rule out the ones that aren’t - the more quickly you will uncover the correct answer. Also, always avoid using greyed-out letters; when you know a letter doesn’t appear in the day’s solution, you should keep it well away from your guess.

Now you know the best starting words, it's only a matter of time before your Wordle game levels up.

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(Video) Solving Wordle using information theory

(Video) The Word that Beats Wordle

FAQs

What are the 3 best words to start with in Wordle? ›

If, on the other hand, you're simply trying to win within the allotted six guesses, the top three words to play are “adept,” “clamp” and “plaid.” Using any of these three words will yield an average success rate in winning the game of 98.79 percent, 98.75 percent, and 98.75 percent, respectively, if you're playing the ...

What is the best word to start Wordle with? ›

Sorry Bill Gates, but AUDIO isn't the best word to start with when you're playing Wordle. A pair of MIT researchers recently set out to find the optimal starting word for the popular online puzzle, discovering that the statistically superior first guess is SALET, which is a 15th century helmet.

What 5 letter word has the most vowels? ›

Top-Words with 5 Letters with mostly vowels
  • MIAOU. ...
  • ADIEU. ...
  • AUDIO. ...
  • AULOI. ...
  • LOUIE. ...
  • AUREI. ...
  • OURIE. ...
  • URAEI.

What are some good 5 letter words? ›

Favorite Five-Letter Words
  • pople.
  • carom.
  • ergot.
  • zibeb.
  • aglet.
  • cubeb.
  • nerpa.
  • taler.

What are the most popular 5 letter words for Wordle? ›

Common Five-letter Words for Wordle, List 5
  • blind.
  • sheet.
  • crush.
  • relax.
  • drain.
  • label.
  • expel.
  • thump.

What are the 5 most used letters in Wordle? ›

As for the letters that begin the most English words, the top five are T, O, A, W, and B. For the end letter, the most common are E, S, T, D, and N.

What are the 5 most common letters in 5 letter words? ›

This means the top most commonly used letters in 5-letter words (in terms of total frequency as well as average frequency) were the letters A, E, S, O, R, I, L, T, etc.

What are the most used words in Wordle? ›

Most common Wordle starting words

ADIEU — ADIEU was the most common response, with a total of 21 submissions. We think this is a smart word to use, as it contains nearly all of the vowels, except O, allowing you to quickly assess which vowels are or aren't in the final word.

What letter do most 5 letter words start with? ›

According to one analysis, the letter E appears most frequently in English-language words featured in a condensed version of the Oxford Dictionary, followed by A, R, I, O, T, N, and S. So starting words like “ratio,” “irate,” “stain,” or “stare” that include those commonly used letters are great options.

What words use all 5 vowels? ›

Eunoia, at six letters long, is the shortest word in the English language that contains all five main vowels. Seven letter words with this property include adoulie, douleia, eucosia, eulogia, eunomia, eutopia, miaoued, moineau, sequoia, and suoidea.

What is a good first word guess for Wordle? ›

The very best opening guess, according to The New York Times Wordle Bot, is 'crane.

What is the hardest 5 letter word? ›

Sesquipedalian. This word means 'long-winded' words, such as Sesquipedalian.

What are the most common 5 letter words that start with a? ›

What are the 5 letter words that start with A? Some of the 5 letter words that start with A are abuzz, achoo, adoze, aeons, afrit, algae, ambry, amour, aorta, arvos, auger, azlon, azoth, askew, angst, almud, aglet, abysm, aahed, aargh, etc.

What are the 4 best words for Wordle? ›

Here are WordleBot's 10 best Wordle start words:
  • CRATE.
  • SLANT.
  • TRACE.
  • LANCE.
  • CARTE.
  • LEAST.
  • TRICE.
  • ROAST.
Feb 2, 2023

What are the 3 least used letters in Wordle? ›

The least common letters in all words are the usual suspects: J, Q, Z, X, and it's unlikely any five-letter Wordle word would contain any of those characters. F, V, and K are also uncommon, but these letters have higher odds of being in one of the five possible Wordle positions.

What is the most common first letter in Wordle? ›

You may intuitively know that the most common starting letter for a daily Wordle is "S". What you may not know is how common it is. Roughly 18% of the possible Wordle answers start with "S".

What are the odds of guessing Wordle on the first try? ›

And the first result that popped up from Real Statistics Using Excel (which seemed credible) said: “Since there are 2,315 possible target words in Wordle, the probability that you will guess the target in exactly one try is 1/2315 = 0.000432.

What are the odds of getting Wordle on the second try? ›

While the figure of 6.5% assumes perfect play, if you're picking any reasonably sensible first guess, and then something consistent with that guess on your second try, your odds are still over 4%.

What is the average Wordle score? ›

Wordle has 2,308 possible answers and 12,545 allowed guesses. The global average for solving Wordle is 4.016 guesses, with Sweden being the best country (3.72) and Egypt the worst (4.42).

What are 5 interesting words? ›

10 unusual words to add to your English vocabulary
  • Anachronism. An anachronism is something (or someone) that is out of place in terms of time or chronology. ...
  • Accismus. A form of irony in which someone feigns indifference to something he or she desires. ...
  • Cacophony. ...
  • Draconian. ...
  • Limerence. ...
  • Pareidolia. ...
  • Riposte. ...
  • Sanctimony.

What are the 5 new words? ›

New words in English (A-E)
  • Abnegation. Denial; renunciation of a doctrine or belief.
  • Ambigue. An ambiguous expression or statement.
  • Athleisure. Comfortable and casual footwear & clothing designed for exercise and rigorous activity.
  • Broigus. Angry or irritated.
  • By-Catch. ...
  • Blert. ...
  • Comp. ...
  • Cryptocurrency.
Feb 7, 2023

Videos

1. Wordle: Best Starting Word
(AP Now)
2. Top 5 best Wordle Starting Words | Hit the like if you play wordle
(LucasNAman7)
3. How To Win At Wordle Every Time
(BuzzFeed Multiplayer)
4. Wordle Best Starting Word Revisited [How to Win More]
(AP Now)
5. What is the best word to start Wordle with
(Jadi)
6. Finding the best Wordle starting words.
(eclecticstudio)
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