Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak Tom's Guide Skip to main content Tom's Guide is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's why you can trust us.
Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak
By Marc McLaren Contributions from Denise Primbet published 25 October 2022 You'll need the best Wordle start words to beat the game (Image credit: Shutterstock) Jump to: Most common letters Best Wordle start words Vowels and Wordle Best Wordle second words The best Wordle start words are the key to beating the game and avoiding the need to search for today's Wordle answer. Without a good start word, your streak is at risk - and nobody wants to lose all that hard wordle work. Plus, even if you're a bit of a Wordle expert by now, having a great start word will help you turn 4/6s into 3/6s (possibly even 2/6s). Even the NYT's brilliant WordleBot tool - sadly now behind a paywall - recognizes the importance of a good start word. I've written before about how I've played every Wordle so far and lost only once, and No. 1 on my list of tips is to use a good starting word. So that's what I'll discuss here. Read on and I'll explain what the best Wordle start words are, the math behind them and what alternatives to try. And also check out Worlde: The Party Game (opens in new tab), a new board game coming this fall you can pre-order now. Most common letters
Best Wordle start words Most common letters
Before we dive into the list of the words, let's break down the science behind it. You don't have to be a genius to realize that it's a good idea to use letters that occur more frequently in English. For example, you're more likely to find an "A" in the word than a "Z." In a research paper on English Letter Frequency Counts (opens in new tab), Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, analyzed the data from Google Books to put together a list of most commonly used letters in the English language. His findings concluded that "E", "T" and "A" were the top three, while "J", "Q" and "Z" were the least common. However, that list is based on words in general, rather than Wordle answers - so to really find out which letters feature most frequently in the game, you'd need to analyze them all. Fortunately, that's easy to do. Because Wordle's answers are all freely available in the website's HTML code, it's pretty simple to download them, then do a bit of number crunching. This is the list of most most frequently used letters that you get when you do that:EAROTLISNC Note that the list above is based on correct Wordle answers, rather than Wordle words; the game accepts some 12,000-plus words as guesses, but only 2,309 are valid solutions. That's interesting, then, but it's just the appetizer for the best Wordle start word main course to follow… Best Wordle start words
What are the best Wordle start words
(Image credit: Wordle/NYT) Several people have attempted to use math to determine the best Wordle start words. One of them was programmer and game designer Tyler Glaiel (opens in new tab), who assigned each letter in Wordle's 12,972 possible guesses a score of 0, 1 or 2, based on whether it is included in one of the 2,309 answers or not, and whether it is in the right place. After checking all 12,972 words, the algorithm determined that the best starting options are:SOAREROATERAISE For reasons that are too complex to go into here, Glaiel concludes that ROATE is the best Wordle start word if you want to rule out possible answers as quickly as possible. However, because ROATE doesn't actually feature in Wordle's possible answers list itself, you'll never get a 1/6 with it. For that reason, Glaiel recommends starting with RAISE. Programmer Bertrand Fan took a similar approach (opens in new tab) and unsurprisingly came up with a very similar list:SOARESAREESEARESTAREROATE Given that the top three don't feature in Wordle's possible answers list, that would make STARE the statistically best Wordle start word, based on Fan's analysis at least. Coincidentally, Stare is the word independently picked by some of the Tom's Guide team months ago, without having seen that research, so that's the one we'd go for. That decision was instead based on common sense; after all, S is the most common first letter among Wordle answers, A is the most common third letter and E the most common fifth letter. T and R, meanwhile, are the two most common consonants overall in the game. So there you have it - for the Tom's Guide team at least, the best Wordle start word is STARE. Though, a pair of MIT researchers (opens in new tab) have their own pick: SALET (a light medieval helmet). That also gives you five of the top 10 letters, but we're not as keen on it as STARE - as R is the third-most-used letter, and L is the sixth-most-used. A good alternate for sure. The best Wordle start word according to WordleBot
(Image credit: Wordle/NYT) The NYT's excellent WordleBot tool has its own list of the best Wordle start words - and it should know, given it's made by the people who now run Wordle. The math behind it is based on how many of Wordle's 2,309 solutions are left, on average, after you play it, plus the average number of steps needed to solve it and a couple of other metrics. And by that measure, the best Wordle start word is apparently CRANE. That's surprising to me - not least because STARE actually fares better in terms of average number of solutions, scoring 71.8 to CRANE's 78.7. But overall WordleBot awards CRANE a score of 99/100 and STARE only 97, and presumably it's better at math than I am, it being a computer and all that. Here are WordleBot's 10 best Wordle start words:CRANESLATECRATESLANTTRACELANCECARTELEASTTRICEROAST STARE is at number 12 in this list - so pretty good, if not quite the best. Vowels and Wordle
Should your Wordle start word have lots of vowels
Some people swear by playing the likes of ADIEU, AUDIO, ABOUT, CANOE or OUIJA, as they let you use up three or four vowels at the start. This can be a good alternative approach, as (almost) every Wordle answer has at least one vowel so it makes sense to identify it as soon as possible. But I wouldn't personally go down that route. ADIEU is not a Wordle answer, so you'll never get a 1/6 with that. AUDIO is decent, but it doesn't contain an E - which is not just the most common vowel but also the most common letter in the game. Ditto ABOUT. CANOE isn't bad, but C and N are nowhere near as common as S, T or R when it comes to consonants, so what you gain in one aspect you lose in the other. And OUIJA is just a silly suggestion: it doesn't have an E but it does have a J, which is the second least likely letter to feature in the game at all. However, vowels are very important in the game in general, so consider them strongly when thinking of a second word. Speaking of which… Best Wordle second words
What about the best follow-up word
(Image credit: Wordle) Of course sometimes even a great start word won't earn you any yellow or green results. If that happens, you'll need a good second word. Which you choose will obviously depend on what your first word was, as you won't want to repeat any letters you've already used. But if I assume you're following this advice (you're going to do so, right) and using STARE as your Wordle start word, I'd recommend PHONY, COULD or DOING as good second options. PHONY is a statistically better option as a second word, because Y is one of the most frequent fifth letters. However, COULD and DOING both use two vowels, and playing your vowels early is always a good strategy, as described above. Of course, starting words can only take you so far. There's a lot more you can learning about Wordle simply by using math, and I've done just that. In fact, I analyzed every Wordle answer to look for patterns - here's what I found. I've also put together a list of the best Wordle alternatives in case the original game proves either too easy or too difficult for your taste. Read next: Your Wordle streak is about to get a multi-device boost - here's how to get it set upToday's best TomsGuide deals of the day deals819 Amazon customer reviews (opens in new tab)☆☆☆☆☆Reduced Price (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$49.94 (opens in new tab)$39.95 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)Reduced Price (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$49.94 (opens in new tab)$39.97 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$429.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)Show More DealsWe check over 250 million products every day for the best prices Be In the Know
Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Marc McLarenFormerly Editor in Chief (U.K.) on Tom's Guide, Marc oversaw all gaming, streaming, audio, TV, entertainment, how-to and cameras coverage, and was also responsible for the site's U.K.-focused output. He is now U.K. Editor in Chief on TechRadar. Marc previously edited the tech website Stuff and has tested and written about phones, tablets, wearables, streaming boxes, smart home devices, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, games, TVs, cameras and much more. He also spent years on a music magazine, where his duties mainly involved spoiling other people's fun, and on a car magazine. An avid photographer, he likes nothing better than taking pictures of very small things (bugs, his daughters) or very big things (distant galaxies). When he gets time, he also enjoys gaming (console and mobile), cycling and attempting to watch as much sport as any human can. He's also fallen in love with Wordle over the past six months and is the author of our today's Wordle answer column, in which he supplies hints and strategy tips for the mega-popular word game. Given he's completed every single Wordle so far and only lost once, and analyzed every Wordle answer in search of patterns, he's well qualified to help you safeguard your streak.With contributions fromDenise PrimbetNews Writer More about software The best cheap monthly VPN plans in 2022 Daily Quordle #274 - answers and hints for Tuesday, October 25Latest Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special trailer, release date, cast and moreSee more latest ► Topics Gaming Internet Software See all comments (3) 3 Comments Comment from the forums MaLLoDoG Am I the only person who uses the previous answer as the next root word? Reply Vinjin Adieu is the best word to start. Today's word is Royal. Reply QuadConPana I start with the same two words everyday. LOUSY and IRATE. I have then tested the vowels AEIOU and Y and consonants LSR and T. Reply View All 3 Comments MOST READMOST SHARED1How to know if someone blocked your number2The 10 best free Steam games3Why you want a mechanical keyboard4How to set parental controls on PS4 and PS4 Pro5Best 75-inch TVs of 20221Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special trailer, release date, cast and more2iPhone 15 rumors: One of the worst iPhone 14 features tipped to continue3How to know if someone blocked your number4The 10 best free Steam games5Why you want a mechanical keyboard