Best Wordle Starting Words, Worked Out From the Data
A good first guess isn't about being right. It's about learning as much as possible, so the best starters use five different, common letters.
How these were picked
We took the 2,659 everyday five-letter words in our word list, the kind daily puzzles use as answers, and counted how often each letter appears in them:
| Letter | Share of everyday five-letter words containing it |
|---|---|
| E | 48% |
| S | 45% |
| A | 39% |
| R | 34% |
| O | 29% |
| T | 28% |
| I | 27% |
| L | 25% |
| N | 23% |
| D | 18% |
| C | 18% |
| U | 16% |
Then we scored every five-letter word with five different letters by adding up those shares. The total is the number of its letters you can expect to see turn green or yellow on an average puzzle.
The top starting words
| Word | Expected letters found |
|---|---|
| AROSE | 1.96 |
| RATES | 1.94 |
| TEARS | 1.94 |
| STARE | 1.94 |
| RAISE | 1.94 |
| ARISE | 1.94 |
| LASER | 1.91 |
| EARNS | 1.89 |
| SNARE | 1.89 |
| LEAST | 1.85 |
The best by this measure is AROSE, which reveals about 1.96 letters on an average puzzle.
A good second guess
If your first guess goes badly, try a second word that uses five completely different letters. After AROSE, that's UNTIL: together they test ten of the most useful letters.
Then narrow it down
Once you have some green and yellow letters, type them into the Wordle helper. It lists every word that still fits, with the most common ones first.