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.
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.