Best Wordle Starting Words You Should Use (April 2025)

There is hardly any possibility that you still haven’t heard of Wordle. This web-based word game, even though a few years old, remains massively popular. However, that doesn’t mean it’s easy, as most folks find starting with the right words the most difficult. We felt the same, so we compiled a list of the best Wordle starting words that you should try out right now. So without further ado, open up Wordle in another tab, and let’s do this.

Top Wordle Starting Words: Our Approach

Looking up online, you will see that there is a ton of advice littered around on the Internet regarding the best starting words to use in Wordle. While most of the advice is correct, we are going to list some of our own general tips you can apply to the game.

• Don’t repeat letters: For those unaware, Wordle is a game that only accepts five-letter words as input with only six tries. As such, every try is important. So whenever playing, ensure you never repeat letters to maximize your chances of ticking all of them off.

• Use vowel-heavy words: A prevalent advice that you will see online is that you should always eliminate your vowels first. This is done to ensure you get them out of the way and then narrow down the other letters. So whenever possible, make sure the best Wordle starting words have the most vowels.

• Don’t rush: While this might sound obvious, most folks rush through their six tries and then wait 24 hours. While you can open an incognito tab, if you’re using an official NYT account, take your time before exhausting all the tries.

If you found the above tips useful and are looking for more, stay tuned for our best Wordle tips and tricks guide.

Best Wordle Starting Words: Our Experience

Following our tips above, here are the absolute best starting words you should use in Wordle. We narrowed these words down from various sources and tried them out for ourselves. While they might not be the straight-up answer, they will help you eliminate the fluff and narrow it down.

• SALTY
• DINER
• POUCH
• ARISE
• RATIO
• WHIRL
• ABOUT
• AROSE
• RAISE
• IDEAL
• TALES
• AISLE
• MEDIA
• CRATE
• LUCKY
• TRACE
• BAKER
• PILOT

I prefer starting with ‘ARISE’ as it contains a high volume of vowels and consonants and helps get quite a few letters out of the way. I then follow along with another word or two until the answer is almost obvious. As I said before, it won’t help you get the answer at once, but it will make the job easier.

What Is the Best 5 Word Start for Wordle

Going through the lists above, you might be confused about all the variety and, instead, might be looking for a more straightforward answer. Well, while there is no concrete list of the absolute five words, given below are our personal picks of the best five starting words for Wordle.

• ARISE
• AISLE
• SALTY
• DINER
• POUCH

While my favorite from this list is certainly ARISE and AISLE, the SALTY-DINER-POUCH trio is my second favorite, and it’s amazing the number of times this trinity has helped me get through a Wordle round.

Now, if you take a look at the above image, while I also used some or all of the other words listed here, there are times when I go another way altogether. It heavily depends on the puzzle in front of you and the method you deploy to solve it.

Best Wordle Starting Words According to Experts

It seems that the ongoing debate of the best starting Wordle words has also been noticed by academia. There have been a couple of studies and analyses done by researchers, and each has its own take on the best word. Here are some of the best starting words for Wordle, according to experts.

• MIT – Tired of guessing, a pair of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) decided to conduct their own study and answer this question once and for all. Conducting their research and running it through an algorithm, the pair determined the best starting Worlde word is ‘SALET,’ a 15th-century helmet. The pair has even published a peer-reviewed paper titled “An Exact and Interpretable Solution to Wordle,” which you can check out for yourself.

• Wordlebot – NYT’s official bot that was launched to help analyze and have fun with Wordle results is yet another helpful resource. Besides assessing a user’s past Wordle results, the assistant also has a list of words it considers the best openers:

1. SLATE – Wordlebot’s top pick in regular mode
2. LEAST – The bot’s best choice in hard mode
3. CRANE – Previously the top pick for regular, but still outstanding
4. DEALT – Previously the top pick for hard mode, but still an amazing pick

• Information Theory – Computer programmer Grant Sanderson decided to take matters into his own hands. Using a combination of information theory and probability, Grant decided to write a computer program that simulated how games might play out on multiple incorrect guesses. Saving you the jargon, the best word starting word, according to Grant Sanderson, is “CRANE.” While it might feel a bit anti-climactic, it’s one of the best starting words you can use in Wordle.

Wordle Starting Words: Key Letters to Use

When improvising in Wordle, using the right letters is key to winning the game by landing the right words. Some letters appear commonly in English words, and targeting these letters is what you need to do.

WordsRated carried out a detailed analysis of 172,000 words, and declared “E” as the most commonly used letter with an 11.51% frequency. The letter “E” was followed by “S” with a 9.52% frequency, and “I” with a 9.01% frequency.

To make it easy for you to improvise at Wordle, here’s a list of the most commonly used letters in the English language that you should know:

With that, we have arrived at the end of this guide, and I certainly hope that it comes in handy for you! However, if you do have any queries, feel free to take to the comments section down below, and we’ll get right back to you.