The best Wordle starting word, statistically proven.
You’re playing Wordle like everyone else, and you want to know the best words with which to start. You’ve come to the right place!
I’ve done the statistical analysis so you don’t have to. Hint: it’s not PIOUS or ADIEU.
Here it comes.
The best starting word is AROSE or SOARE.
Play UNLIT or UNTIL as your second word.
Why?
E, S, A, O, R, I, L, T, N and U are the ten most frequently occurring letters in Wordle word list, in that order.
The letters in AROSE and UNTIL account for 67% of all letters in the list, and all vowels.
By playing them first, you can often solve Wordle in 3 tries, and almost always in 4. Only very occasionally will you be pushed to 5 tries by a weird word.
How did you work this out?
Some Wordle starting word articles have based their recommendations on the frequency of letters in the English language. That’s not useful. Wordle only uses five letter words, so counting the frequency of letters in other length words gives us the wrong number.
You can see the Wordle word list for yourself here on Github.
I took the list, threw it in a spreadsheet, and counted the frequency of every letter. I’ll list the exact count for every letter in the alphabet at the end of this article.
What should I play next?
So you’ve started with AROSE and UNTIL. What do you play next?
Hopefully enough letters were highlighted in your first two words that you have some clear clues about which letters to play next. If not, keep relying on statistically probable letters.
The next most frequently occurring letters are D, Y, C, P and M, in that order. Unfortunately, unlike AROSE and UNTIL, these letters don’t form a convenient word for us to play.
My advice: make a word using as many of them as possible, using whichever vowel got highlighted in your first two rows.
There are only two words that use four of those letters, which are:
CAMPY and DUMPY
CAMPY will let you know if the solution has a CH or CK combination, so that’s my go-to.
Some more options
You could also use a H or G, the next most commonly occurring letters. Use the H if a C or S came up in your first rows, otherwise try the G. An F wouldn’t hurt, either.
Here are a your word options using those letters, ordered by vowel used:
CHAMP
CHYME, HEDGY, HEMPY, HYPED, KEMPY
CHIMP, CHIMB, GIMPY, PIGMY
CHOMP, COMFY
CHUMP, BUMPH, BUMPY, DUCHY, DUMKY, FUDGY, HUMPY
LYMPH, NYMPH, GLYPH, PSYCH, PYGMY
Or don’t play any of these. Look at the letters you were given, they might point to you needing rarer letters. Try a CK combination if it looks likely.
Do I have to use UNTIL?
Nope. After playing AROSE, it may be obvious that other letters would serve you better.
But it’s not just about letter frequency?
You’re absolutely right, letter frequency isn’t everything. Also important are common letter combinations, and most frequent letter position.
I haven’t analysed either. If anyone has some Python skills up their sleeve and wants to do the analysis, I’ll happily append it to this article. [edit: I’ve since added a comment on Bertrand Fan’s letter position analysis, below]
Until then, we’ll still have to rely on some knowledge of the English language. And some luck!
What about Betrand Fan’s analysis?
I stumbled across this amazing analysis by Betrand after I wrote the first version of this article. He seems to have found that not all words in the Wordle word list are actually solutions, and therefore based his letter frequency analysis only on solution words.
Seems logical, and it gives a slightly different word order: E, A, R, O, T, L, I, S, N, C. That’s only one letter different to my analysis; the C has replaced the U.
He then takes another approach to assess words based on their letters appearing in the right spot, and his answer for the best starting word? SOARE.
Seems like you’re safe with AROSE/SOARE, and given L, I, S, N and C combined don’t make a word, UNTIL/UNLIT is still a great followup word.
But I want to win in 2?
Don’t we all. If you want to get lucky with being the one to complete rare words in 2, then by all means keep using your favourite random starting words.
But if you just want to grind Jeff in Accounting into the dust with your win percentage, stick to AROSE.
But my starting words are better.
That’s cool, if you have a strategy and it’s working for you, don’t let me tell you what to do. You’re welcome to share your starting words in the comments!
Wordle is just a game, stop trying to take all the fun out of it!
Touché. Sometimes you need to live a little. Sometimes you just need to start with FARTS.
As promised, the frequency of each letter in the alphabet appearing in the Wordle 5-letter word list:
e 6660
s 6656
a 5989
o 4436
r 4155
i 3758
l 3365
t 3291
n 2946
u 2508
d 2453
y 2070
c 2028
p 2019
m 1975
h 1760
g 1641
b 1627
k 1504
f 1114
w 1038
v 692
z 434
j 289
x 288
q 112
Happy Wordle-ing!
