Wordle gives you six guesses to find a five-letter word. After each guess, letters turn green if they are in the right place, yellow if they are in the word but somewhere else, and grey if they are not in the word. Good players treat each guess as a way to collect information, not just as a shot at the answer. This guide explains how, using letter counts we calculated from the 8,620 five-letter words in the ENABLE word list.
One caution before the numbers: the game picks its answers from a smaller list of familiar words, and that list is not public in a form we use. Our counts describe all five-letter words in ENABLE, including unusual ones and plurals, so they are a guide to English letter patterns rather than a prediction of the answer.
The most common letters
This table shows how many of the 8,620 words contain each letter at least once.
| Letter | Words containing it | Share of words |
|---|---|---|
| S | 3,993 | 46.3% |
| E | 3,876 | 45.0% |
| A | 3,490 | 40.5% |
| R | 2,668 | 31.0% |
| O | 2,530 | 29.4% |
| I | 2,424 | 28.1% |
| L | 2,166 | 25.1% |
| T | 2,084 | 24.2% |
| N | 1,847 | 21.4% |
| U | 1,594 | 18.5% |
| D | 1,564 | 18.1% |
| C | 1,370 | 15.9% |
S comes top largely because of plurals: 2,689 of the words (31%) end in S. Wordle's answers rarely include simple plurals, so in practice S is less useful than this table suggests, while E, A, R, O, I, L, T and N remain strong choices.
Letters by position
Where a letter tends to appear matters as much as how often. These are the three most common letters in each position:
| Position | Most common | Second | Third |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | S (1,053) | C (664) | B (589) |
| 2 | A (1,476) | O (1,332) | E (1,061) |
| 3 | A (849) | R (790) | I (741) |
| 4 | E (1,701) | A (659) | T (622) |
| 5 | S (2,689) | E (931) | Y (901) |
Vowels cluster in the second and fourth positions, E is very common as the fourth letter, and the last letter is very often S, E or Y. If you have a yellow E, trying it fourth is often a good bet.
Choosing a starting word
A good first guess tests several common letters at once and uses five different letters. Words built from letters such as S, E, A, R, O, T, L, I and N do this well: SLATE, CRANE, RAISE, AROSE, STARE and TRACE are popular choices, and all of them are in ENABLE. There is no single best opening; what matters is testing common letters and then using the result well.
Some players use a fixed pair of openers that cover ten different letters, such as SLATE followed by CORNY, or RAISE followed by COUNT. That approach finds most vowels quickly, at the cost of not using what the first guess told you.
Using the colours well
- Green: keep that letter in that position in every later guess if you play hard mode; in normal mode you can sometimes leave it out to test new letters.
- Yellow: the letter is in the word but not in that spot. Move it somewhere else next time; this rules out positions as well as confirming the letter.
- Grey: the letter is not in the word, unless you used it twice and one copy showed green or yellow, in which case the answer has exactly as many copies as were coloured.
Watch for repeated letters
In ENABLE, 2,963 of the five-letter words (34%) contain at least one repeated letter, as in SKILL, VIVID, EERIE and SPOON. Players often forget this. If the common letters are used up and nothing fits, consider a double letter.
When you are stuck
If you have four letters fixed and several possible answers, such as _IGHT (FIGHT, LIGHT, MIGHT, NIGHT, RIGHT, SIGHT, TIGHT), guessing them one at a time can run out your guesses. In normal mode, a better move is to guess a word that tests several of the possible first letters at once, such as one containing F, L, M and N. In hard mode you cannot do this, so think ahead before you lock in letters.
Normal mode or hard mode?
In normal mode you can guess any valid word, even one that ignores what you already know. That freedom is useful: a guess built entirely from untested letters can rule out far more words than a guess that only shuffles known ones. In hard mode, every green letter must stay in place and every yellow letter must be used, so your guesses are always possible answers. Hard mode is less forgiving of a weak opening and of runs of similar words, so take a little longer over your second guess.
A routine for each game
Start with your usual opener. Before the second guess, write down what you know: letters confirmed, letters ruled out and positions ruled out for each yellow letter. Then choose a word that either fits all of that or tests several new common letters. Repeat after each guess. Most mistakes come from forgetting a yellow letter's ruled-out position, so keep track of those.
Checking your game
The Wordle solver lets you enter your guesses and colours and shows which words are still possible. It is a good way to check your thinking after a game, or to see whether you missed a better guess. It does not know the day's answer. For Quordle, switch the solver to four boards.
For the full list behind these counts, see our 5-letter words page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best first word for Wordle?
There is no single best word. Choose one with five different common letters, such as SLATE, CRANE or RAISE, and use the colours well afterwards.
Where do these letter counts come from?
We counted the 8,620 five-letter words in the public-domain ENABLE list. They are not counts of Wordle answers.