Quite a bit of the gameplay in a daily round of Wordle comes down to guesswork rather than strategy, at least when it comes to picking the first word to start with. The more guesses a player makes, the easier it is to narrow down what the solution could possibly be, making critical thinking more and more essential the longer the puzzle goes on. However, Wordle only allows for six guesses to be made before a player effectively loses the round, meaning in order to optimize their strategy players will have to pay careful attention right from the get-go, picking out a starting word that should theoretically increase the speed at which they can reach the answer.
Although Wordle has existed for just short of a year now, it only started gaining serious traction in the last couple weeks of December 2021, and as the new year begins many are being swept up in the hype. The premise is similar to other famous puzzle games. Players are presented with a five-letter space, into which they must put a word of their choosing. Wordle more or less follows the rule of Scrabble when it comes to accepted words. From there, the boxes will become highlighted in different colors based on whether the letters are misplaced or incorrectly chosen. The goal is to move letters around, making different guesses until the solution is found.
Alongside its accessible UI, straightforward premise, and short playtime, the social aspect of Wordle is arguably what drew so much attention to it. The game makes it easy to share the game on Twitter or other social platforms without ruining the answer for other players, and the fact that it's so easy to access compared to similar games which might require an app store download or gaming console to play means that it's easy for Wordle fans to get their friends and family to participate. A rather active online community has formed around Wordle already, too, with players posting solutions for others, optimizing the game with the use of bots, and sharing strategy tips for those looking to best their buddies.
Best Words To Start Wordle With - Soare
Engineer Bertrand Fan is one such Wordle player, and in late November 2021, he took to figuring out the most optimal starting word for any given Wordle round, basing his research off of similar word games like Wheel of Fortune and even analyzing all the words in the Concise Oxford Dictionary. Then, by looking into the source code of Wordle, he was able to examine the game's solution array to calculate the letter frequency of every possible solution. The result is the word "soare," an outdated term for a young hawk. It's almost certainly a guess most players would never think of.
Best Words To Start Wordle With - Roate
On top of the list of possible solutions, Wordle also hosts a list of possible guesses - words that the game will accept as valid but won't actually ever appear as one of the daily answers. Programmer Tyler Glaiel set up a bot to find the most efficient method of guessing Wordle answers and found that, while "roate" was the ideal first guess in theory, it wasn't present on the solution array and therefore would never allow for players to score a "hole-in-one" victory by guessing the word correctly on the first try.
Best Words To Start Wordle With - Raise
While words like "roate" might serve as an effective starting place for players who aren't all too worried about potentially solving Wordle with just one guess, those who do want to at least try for a concise victory might want to instead try the word "raise," similarly calculated by Glaiel to provide players with a way to solve Wordle in an average of just 3.5 guesses. While it might be slightly less optimal, it's more commonly known, and might be easier for Wordle players to remember each time they start the game up as part of their daily gaming routine.
Source: Bertrand Fan, Tyler Glaiel