The best Wordle starting words, tested on every five-letter word

The short answer

• RAISE is the best single first guess in our test: on average it leaves 78.1 possible answers out of 2,830.
• SLATE did best over whole games: with the same simple strategy it solved the 2,830 answers in 3.63 guesses on average, against 3.69 for RAISE.
• ADIEU and AUDIO, the famous vowel openers, rank 1,132 and 3,514 out of 8,612. In full games they needed 0.18 more guesses on average than SLATE.
• After RAISE, CLOUT is the strongest second word: together they leave 6.5 possible answers on average.

How we tested every starting word

Wordle answers are ordinary five-letter words, so we built an answer pool of 2,830 common five-letter words: every five-letter word in the ENABLE list that also appears in the 12dicts frequency lists. Every one of the 8,612 five-letter ENABLE words was allowed as a guess.

For each guess we coloured it against every answer in the pool, exactly as the game does, and grouped the answers by the colours they produce. A good first word splits the pool into many small groups. The score is the average size of the group you land in: the number of answers still possible after your first guess. Lower is better.

This is not the official answer list of the game, which its publisher keeps and edits. It is a pool of common words of the same kind, large enough that the ranking does not depend on a few words.

The 15 best first guesses

"Colour patterns" is how many different results the word can show on the first row: more patterns means more information. "Worst case" is the largest group you can be left with. RAISE has both a low average and one of the smallest worst cases, which is why it leads.

Notice the letters: the top words are built from E, A, R, S, T, I, O and L. These are the letters that appear in the most five-letter answers (see the letter table below). The exact position matters too: an S at the start or an E at the end turns green far more often.

Popular starting words, ranked

Out of 8,612 possible first words, here is where the ones people talk about land.

Some openers recommended online, such as ROATE, SOARE and SALET, are not in the ENABLE list, so they are not ranked here.

Why vowel-heavy words like ADIEU are weaker

ADIEU tests four vowels at once, which feels efficient. But 2,813 of the 2,830 answers contain at least one of A, E, I, O and U, and 83.4% contain A, E or O, so learning that vowels are there tells you little. Consonants split the pool better: R is in 987 of the 2,830 answers, T in 805, L in 758. ADIEU also spends a slot on D and U, which are rarer. The result is 87 colour patterns against 136 for RAISE, and 149.7 answers left on average instead of 78.1.

Over a whole game: SLATE beats RAISE

The first guess is only one row. To see what happens next, we played all the answers with a simple, fixed strategy: after the opener, always guess the word that leaves the fewest answers on average. Same strategy for every opener, so only the first word changes.

SLATE and CRANE finish ahead of RAISE although RAISE wins the first row. A first word also sets up the second one: SLATE and CRANE leave groups that are easier to split. The gap is small, about 0.05 of a guess per game, but it holds across all 2,830 answers. The vowel openers are clearly behind.

Our strategy is deliberately simple and does not plan ahead, so a handful of answers take more than six guesses. Stronger solvers never fail, but the ranking of openers stays useful for playing by hand.

The best second word after RAISE

If you open with RAISE and see mostly grey, a second word with five new common letters does the most work. These were the best fixed second words in our test:

Playing a fixed second word is not always best. If your first row gave you greens, use them: type your colours into the Wordle solver and it lists every answer that still fits.

Which letters appear where in five-letter answers

S is by far the most common first letter; Y and E share the last position. Across the whole word, E is in 1,272 answers and A in 1,126, while Q is in only 35. 928 of the answers repeat a letter, like APPLE or SPEED: remember that when a word seems impossible.

How to use this in your next game

1. Open with RAISE, SLATE, CRANE or STARE. All four are in our top 90 and use the most useful letters.
2. If the first row is mostly grey, play five new common letters next (CLOUT or COUNT after RAISE).
3. From the third row on, use every green and yellow. The five-letter word finder or the Wordle solver shows what still fits.
4. When several answers remain, guess the one that splits them, not the one you like best.

Method and sources

Guesses: the 8,612 five-letter words in ENABLE (public domain). Answers: the 2,830 of those that also appear in the 12dicts frequency levels by Alan Beale. Colouring follows the game rules, including repeated letters. Scores were computed on 27 September 2026 with the scripts in our repository. Word lists are described on the sources page. anagrimo is not affiliated with The New York Times.

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