How to crack Wordle: 5-letter words to use first (2023)

What’s the best five-letter word to start with when trying to solve the daily Wordle? Some of us have go-to words we rely on to maximize our word-guessing and puzzle-solving skills, and there are some statistically advantageous starting words that feature a variety of commonly used letters. Ideally, you would use a five-letter word with five distinct and commonly used letters on your first guess, like “arise” or “roast.”

Similarly, you should probably avoid starting the daily puzzle with a word like “qapik,” “queue,” or “qajat” — all accepted by Wordle — because they use less common letters in English words and feature repeated vowels.

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. There are more English-language words that start with S than any other letter, so a starting word that begins with S is also a good first guess. (If the words mentioned earlier in this paragraph come back all gray, maybe try “lurch” or “cloud” for another set of frequently used distinct letters.)

(Video) Can you find: five five-letter words with twenty-five unique letters?

If you want a variety of vowels, the word “ouija” has all but E (and sometimes Y) and is a good starter word, even though J is one of the least frequently used letters in English words, according to the aforementioned analysis.

For those less interested in pure optimization, here’s how Wordle players at Polygon start the puzzle each day.

FRAME, GRAZE, WINDY, PAINT, GOURD, SWING, VAPES

I aim for a mix of common and uncommon letters in my first guess(es). The more common letters are to see if I can nail down the shape of a word, with those less common ones for process of elimination — just trying to avoid the heartbreak of having four of the five letters set, and a last letter that could be a number of different options. That said, I wouldn’t call myself a big strategy person. It’s more fun, in my opinion, to throw random ideas in there and see if you happen to get some leads. —Nicole Clark

(Video) Solvle - The Automatic Wordle Solver!

AUDIO, FARTS

The first is to knock out four vowels in one go and the second is because how funny would it be to get that on the first try? Disclaimer: I definitely got that idea from someone on Twitter, but it’s too good. —Petrana Radulovic

ADIEU, OUIJA

I’ve fallen off the Wordle bandwagon over the past week, but my go-to strategy is to start with a five-letter word with as many vowels as possible so as to figure out the general composition of the day’s word. After that, it’s just blind guessing. —Toussaint Egan

READY, PEARS, CHIEF, TOUCH

Big fan of never playing the same word twice. Prefer the chaos. Peace is knowing the goal of Wordle is not to get the correct word in the fewest turns, but to get the job done in the space provided. Wordle is life. That said, if I’ve decided to Wordle before coffee, I’ll default to one of these words that seem to check those Wheel of Fortune “top letter” boxes. —Matt Patches

(Video) Can I Guess This 5 Letter Word? WORDLE - A Daily Word Game (223) | January 28th

ARISE

I stole this off someone on Twitter. It has the two most important vowels, and arguably the two most important consonants to identify or rule out. It rarely draws a blank and usually gives you a decent lead on the second line. It appeals to the puzzle-solving, min-maxing side of my brain. But I’m not sure I like playing Wordle this way. It’s strategic but it has no flair; it’s almost cheap. And I miss the thrill of trying to intuit something with a first guess out of the blue. —Oli Welsh

ROAST, TEARS, MEATS, OUIJA, PIZZA

Like several people at Polygon, I revel in the uncertainty of a new word each day. But, I’m also human, which means I do have fallback words for those mornings after I scored in five or six tries the previous day. Also, I stole “roast” from Nicole Carpenter and “ouija” from Toussaint. I’m like a starting-word Robin Hood, if Robin Hood just kept everything he stole, and were nothing like me at all. —Mike Mahardy

POETS, EARLY, STEAM, BOILS, SPOUT, COUNT, WOUND, STEAK

I’m in the same boat as other people here (hey, “boats” isn’t a bad one) — I like the challenge of coming up with a new starter word every day so Wordle doesn’t start to seem like a rote, mechanical task. The point (ooh, “point” is pretty good too) is always to hit at least two vowels and a couple of the more common consonants without repeating any letters. But I prefer the feeling of coming up with a new starting point every day and seeing what lands over trying to whittle down the skeleton key that might fit every lock. —Tasha Robinson

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N/A

Wordle has been a balm during a tough time in my life, a fun daily thought exercise where I can attempt to clear my mind and focus on an energizing challenge for a few minutes. (Or, uh, many minutes.) As such, I’ve tried to just take each day’s puzzle as it comes and not think too much about the opening gambit. In other words, I come up with a new starter word every day — whatever floats to the top of my brain at that particular moment.

I mean, sure, you want to follow the basic rules of Wheel of Fortune and Scrabble with respect to letter frequency — i.e., it probably doesn’t make sense to start with a word that has J or Z in it — and it’s a good idea to get at least two vowels in there. But that’s about as deep as I go into Wordle strategy. Any deeper, and it starts to feel like I’m calculating probabilities rather than thinking about the wondrous variety of the English language. And nobody prefers math games to word games. —Samit Sarkar

FAQs

What is the best 5 letter word to start Wordle 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 5 words to use in Wordle to get all letters? ›

"Derby, flank, ghost, winch, jumps." After typing in the magic words, Myles had one chance to solve the puzzle.

What is the best first word to start with for Wordle? ›

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 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 3 best words to use in Wordle? ›

So RATIO first, then MENDS, then LUCKY. That's it. With those three choices, you'll have slimmed down the list of possible letters to the point that figuring out the solution with your final guesses becomes significantly easier.

What's the best strategy for Wordle? ›

Wordle: The Best Strategy For The Game
  1. 1 Try Even If It Looks Wrong.
  2. 2 Words Rarely End In S. ...
  3. 3 Cross Out One Letter At A Time. ...
  4. 4 Find Go-To Words. ...
  5. 5 Skip The Correct Letters In The Second Guess. ...
  6. 6 Remember The Statistics. ...
  7. 7 Use Distinct Words For First 2 Guesses. ...
  8. 8 Eliminate Vowels First. ...
Jul 9, 2022

What is the best Wordle solver? ›

Here are five free helpers that just might be your best path to victory.
  1. Wordle Solver.
  2. Unwordle. ...
  3. Wordle Helper. ...
  4. Wordle Archive. ...
  5. OneLook. Our first free tool doesn't involve cheating, but it might offer just enough help to get you where you need to go. ...
Jan 12, 2022

What 5 letter word uses the most vowels? ›

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

What is the most rare 5 letter word? ›

Good luck!
  • ADIEU. Adieu means the same as goodbye. ...
  • TARES. Any of various vetch plants, such as Vicia hirsuta (hairy tare) of Eurasia and North Africa.
  • SOARE. A now obsolete noun meaning a young hawk, but one that does appear in the Wordle dictionary.
  • DUCAT. ...
  • OUIJA. ...
  • CAROM. ...
  • ERGOT. ...
  • CRAIC.
Feb 1, 2022

What are the best two starting words for Wordle? ›

Best Wordle starting words
  • Slice. Slice is the best starting word according to this research, and it's easy to see why. ...
  • Tried. Just like in the example above, 'tried' lets you leap closer to the solution by finding or cutting out some extremely common letters. ...
  • Crane. ...
  • Bakes. ...
  • Reach. ...
  • Roast.
Feb 17, 2022

What is the hardest 5 letter word? ›

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

How do I always win Wordle every time? ›

Beat Wordle Every Time: The Best 5-Letter Words & Tricks
  1. Start with a word that has 3, 4, or 5 vowels.
  2. Use your second try to confirm as many letters as possible.
  3. Try our cheat sheet of the best Wordle words.
  4. Learn the most common letters and their positions.
  5. Consider common letter pairings.
Nov 7, 2022

How to cheat on Wordle unlimited? ›

The Fun Way to Cheat at Wordle

Simply refreshing the URL for Wordle won't let you start a new game. To do that, you need to open a new browser window in incognito mode, which will let you start a new game. If you still get 6/6, just close the private browser window and open a new one.

What is the hardest Wordle to guess? ›

The Top 25 Hardest Wordle Words of 2022 (And What They Mean)
  • trice.
  • knoll.
  • smite.
  • tacit.
  • atoll.
  • piney.
  • trope.
  • swill.
Dec 16, 2022

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.
Nov 15, 2022

How do I get all the letters in Wordle? ›

To solve Wordle as efficiently as possible, try words that include the letters e, t, a, i, o, n, s, h, and r; these are the most common letters in English. Another great trick is to begin with words that start with the letters t, a, o, d, and w; as again, these are the most common starting letters in English.

Are there 5 words that use 25 letters? ›

What 5 words use 25 letters?
  • brick.
  • feast.
  • glent.
  • jumpy.
  • vozhd.
  • waqfs.

What 5 letter word has the most vowels for Wordle? ›

Five-letter words that contain four vowels include:
  • AUDIO.
  • AULOI.
  • AUREI.
  • LOUIE.
  • MIAOU.
  • OUIJA.
  • OURIE.
  • URAEI.
Sep 30, 2022

What are the most used words in Wordle? ›

The most common letters used in Wordle are E R A O T, according to an analysis of 221 games from Christopher Ingraham, a former Washington Post reporter. Context: Invented by Josh Wardle, a software engineer in Brooklyn, to amuse his friends and partner, Wordle has become a daily obsession for many ( 🙋).

What is the most popular 5 letter word? ›

Favorite Five-Letter Words
  • spasm.
  • queef.
  • chunk.
  • beefy.
  • schwa.
  • samba.
  • barfy.
  • ennui.

What is the most commonly used 5 letter word? ›

The 5-letter-word most frequently heard at our Scrabble club is BINGO!

What five letter words don t repeat? ›

The best I can come up with are these 5 words: nifty, block, judge, swamp and then hover. These 5 words use up 23 letters leaving only x, q and z unused. If you use these 5 words in wordle, it is very easy to correctly guess the wordle word in six attempts.

What words use all 5 vowels? ›

EUNOIA is the shortest word in English which has all five vowels.

Which 5 letter word has no vowels? ›

Worldle, Quordle, and Octordle all use 5-letter words for each clue.

Videos

1. My Tips and Tricks for Beating Wordle!
(SteveTAGamer)
2. Wordle: How to Win in Fewer Rounds [Win Every Time – Legit]
(AP Now)
3. Five words that will solve Wordle every time
(Voidzy)
4. What is the best FIRST WORD in WORDLE app?
(mrhackio)
5. Five 'magic words' to solve Wordle every time
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6. Annoying Orange - The WORDLE Challenge!
(Annoying Orange)

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