Skip to main content

The best Wordle starting words, tips, and tricks for beginners

Woman playing Wordle on her smartphone.
Adobe Stock

Wordle is a worldwide phenomenon, and though it’s no longer quite the obsession it was in 2022, it’s still a daily delight of many people’s mornings. Wordle‘s genius is that it is simple to understand but fiendishly difficult to master, and anyone can pick it up and start playing in a very brief time. You can learn to play Wordle easily as all you need to do is guess a particular five letter word, but getting it right every time is hard as there are only six attempts to guess the word each day. If you’re struggling to master this tricky puzzle, then try out our tips for the best starting words to maximize your chances of becoming a Wordle master.

How to play Wordle

If you’re brand new to this world of Wordle, here’s a brief rundown of how the game works. Every day, a new five-letter world is chosen that is the same for everyone playing that day. Your challenge is to type in five-letter words to try and figure out what the day’s word is. Every letter in the word you guess will be given a color: Green means you guessed the correct letter, and it is in the correct spot; yellow means that letter is in the answer but not in the right spot; and gray letters are not in the word at all. Each guess must be a dictionary word, so you can’t just throw in five random letters.

Since everyone playing gets the same word each day, when the game prompts you to share your results, it will only show the colors of how you did in a grid so no one is spoiled on the day’s word. The faster you guess the entire word, the more impressive!

Best Wordle starting words, and tips to win

Someone playing Wordle on a smartphone.
Adobe Stock

It might seem like Wordle is all luck, but there are a few good practices you can use to help get as many clues as possible in just a few guesses, making it that much more likely you can figure out the final word before you run out of tries.

The most important guess is your first. You want to get as many green and yellow letters here as possible to help guide your future guesses. The most important letters to get started with are vowels — A, E, I, O, and U — so words containing as many of these as possible are a great start. Some popular starting words people have had good luck with are “adieu,” “media,” “arise,” and “radio.” Just make sure not to pick a word with double letters, to get as much new info as possible.

Your second word, assuming that the first one gave you a good jumping-off point, should begin to lean more heavily on common consonants like R, S, and T. More good ones here we’ve seen are “stern,” “irate,” and “atone.” This is where things will vary due to each day being a different solution, but you never want to reuse any letters from a prior round that showed up as gray. It may push you to think a little harder to come up with a word, but there’s nothing to be gained from using a letter you know isn’t in the answer.

Finally, keep in mind that words can have a duplicate letter. These words are the toughest to get, but also aren’t super common. If you get to the final round or two and are stumped, it’s a great thing to keep in mind.

The New York Times, which operates Wordle, made a sizable change to the way the game works in November 2022. A dedicated editor is now in charge of the game, and will potentially make changes to the solutions list to liven things up. Most notably, plural words that simply add an “es” or “s” to a singular word will not be valid answers anymore; for example “boats” and “foxes” cannot be a Wordle answer anymore. Other plurals like “fungi” or “geese” will still be valid. Crucially, all five-letter dictionary words are still valid to guess and get yellow or green letters from, but that doesn’t mean they’re available as a future solution.

Tools that can help you with Wordle

A person plays 'Wordle' on an iPhone.
Getty Images

Some people think that the fun of Wordle is coming up with word ideas on your own, but others find that some tools help them enjoy the puzzle more. If you’re tool-inclined, then you can try a list of five-letter words like the Best Word List to help you come up with ideas. A warning though, as these kinds of word databases tend to include a lot of words which aren’t well known and which likely wouldn’t be accepted by Wordle. Still, if you’re really stumped then it could help give you some clues as for words to try.

If you need even more help than that, there are tools like Wordle Solver which will take your green and yellow letters from your guesses and give you the likely answer. That rather takes the fun out of playing the game, but the developers of the tool say it’s designed to help you maintain your streak when you’re really stuck on a single puzzle — so if that’s important to you, can can try this tool out.

Other than these tips, the most important thing is to have fun with it! Wordle is meant to be a fun little brain-teaser, not something to get stressed out over. Enjoy the ride, learn some new words, and start posting your own grids all over social media to show off with everyone else! And if you’re stuck, here’s today’s Wordle answer.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox loves writing, games, and complaining about not having time to write and play games. He knows the names of more…
Cities: Skylines II beginner’s guide: tips and tricks to get started
A screenshot from Cities: Skylines 2's cinematic reveal trailer.

The city-building genre has served a niche audience for the decades since the original Sim City popularized the idea of allowing players to design and manage their own little utopias. With that original franchise on ice, it fell to a newcomer, Cities: Skylines, to take up the mantle as the major player in the genre, and it managed to be a well-received replacement. That title got tons of support from the developers and community, but it finally came time for a sequel to freshen things up. Cities: Skylines II is building on the same foundation as city builders of the past, but it also brings in new features and mechanics that even seasoned city planners will need to wrap their heads around. Whether this is your first time raising a city from scratch or you've poured hundreds of hours into urban design, these are the essential tips and tricks you need to know when starting out in Cities: Skylines II.
Picking your plot

The first major choice you will need to make in Cities: Skylines II is where you want to actually go about building your dream society. At launch, the game comes with six maps to pick between, but this decision carries more weight than just aesthetic differences. Yes, each map has its own look that will determine how your buildings, homes, and even vehicles look, but there are deeper mechanical changes you want to plan for.

Read more
Baldur’s Gate 3: tips and tricks for beginners
Baldurs Gate 3

Whether you've played a CRPG before, or even the classic pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons game, there's no denying that Baldur's Gate 3 has captured the attention of many gamers who are unfamiliar with the genre. This makes it quite intimidating to jump into for newcomers with just how deep the systems appear but with a little help, it isn't terribly hard to become invested in this unique experience. While Baldur's Gate 3 does do a lot to try and explain itself, there's just far too much to take in for most players. Since you can't exactly ask a DM to catch you up or remind you of how something works, we'll help guide you through the early hours of Baldur's Gate 3 with this set of tips and tricks.
Save a lot

Things can get very bad very fast in Baldur's Gate 3, in and out of combat. In fights, there's always the chance a bad roll will wipe your party or you came in with the completely wrong setup or companions. In that case, having a handy save is vital to jump back to and prevent you from either failing or using a ton of resources to squeak by.

Read more
Call of Duty: Warzone tips and tricks
Player on the Vondel map in Warzone.

The current version of Call of Duty: Warzone, much like its predecessor, is a complicated beast of a game, full of little intricacies that even veteran players might not be aware of. Of course, winning a match often comes down to luck, but there are many things you can do to increase your odds of being the last squad standing.

In this guide, we'll go through eight essential tips and tricks to help you survive and excel in Warzone.
Communicate effectively

Read more