The best first guess, measured.
Most “best starting word” lists are built on the whole English dictionary. GuessWord picks its answers from fixed lists, so we tested every opening word against those lists instead. The winner depends on which mode you're playing.
A good opener is one that leaves you with the fewest possible answers. For every five-letter word with no repeated letters, we played it against every answer in a list and grouped the answers by the colour pattern they would show. The expected answers left is the average size of the group you'd land in. Lower is better: an opener with 16 expected answers left gives you a far easier second guess than one with 40.
This is a stricter test than counting how many green or amber tiles a word usually earns. A word can light up plenty of amber tiles and still leave you guessing, if those tiles show up for the same big group of words every time. What matters is how well a guess splits the list.
| Mode | Best | 2nd | 3rd | CRANE | ADIEU |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily (728 words) | IRATE 15.7 | ORATE 15.8 | ARISE 16.1 | CRANE 20.0 | ADIEU 39.3 |
| Infinite (1,456 words) | RAISE 41.8 | AROSE 43.6 | ARISE 45.1 | CRANE 53.1 | ADIEU 79.7 |
| Guest play (2,844 words) | TALES 85.2 | ALOES 87.5 | REALS 87.7 | CRANE 180.5 | ADIEU 159.8 |
For the Daily word, IRATE, ORATE and ARISE come out on top. The Daily list leans on common, everyday words: E appears in more than half of them, R in 41%, and very few are plurals, so words that test E, A, R and T without wasting a slot on S do best.
In Infinite the list is twice as large and more varied, and RAISE edges ahead. The leading words are close together — anything from the top ten will serve you well.
Guest play (the rounds you play on the home page without logging in) is a different game. More than half of its answers end in S — plurals such as “tales” and verb forms such as “rates” — so openers that put S in the last slot, like TALES and REALS, leave about half as many answers as CRANE.
| Opener | Daily | Infinite | Guest play |
|---|---|---|---|
| RAISE | 16.9 | 41.8 | 112.4 |
| STARE | 17.5 | 50.5 | 105.7 |
| SLATE | 18.7 | 51.1 | 103.0 |
| TARES | 18.4 | 50.1 | 88.5 |
| CRANE | 20.0 | 53.1 | 180.5 |
| TRACE | 17.5 | 53.3 | 173.7 |
| ADIEU | 39.3 | 79.7 | 159.8 |
| AUDIO | 61.3 | 114.0 | 244.7 |
CRANE, the opener many players swear by, is solid for the Daily word but falls behind in guest play, because it can't test the final S. SLATE and STARE are the safest all-rounders: never the best in a mode, but never far off.
Vowel-heavy openers feel clever — four vowels in one guess! — but the numbers say otherwise. ADIEU leaves roughly twice as many answers as the best opener in every mode, and AUDIO about three times as many.
- Almost every answer has a vowel, and most have exactly two (57% across our lists), so learning which vowels are present tells you less than you'd think.
- Consonants such as R, T, S, L and N divide the list much more sharply. Knowing whether there's an R narrows things far more than knowing whether there's a U.
- ADIEU and AUDIO rarely earn green tiles, because their vowels sit in unusual positions. Greens are the most valuable feedback in the game.
In a full simulation, a player who opened with ADIEU and then always chose the most informative remaining word needed 4.28 guesses on average and failed 6.3% of games. The same player opening with TARES or CRANE averaged 4.06 guesses and failed about 4%.
If your opener comes back mostly gray, a second word with five fresh letters is usually the best move. Paired with TARES, these second words make the strongest two-guess start across all our lists — about 10 answers left on average after both:
Each brings in L, O and D or N — common letters TARES doesn't test. Once you have two or three coloured tiles, though, stop exploring and start using them; the solving strategy guide explains when to switch.
- Daily word: open with IRATE, ARISE or RAISE.
- Infinite: RAISE or AROSE.
- Guest play: TALES or TARES — test that final S.
- One word for everything: SLATE or STARE.
- Skip ADIEU and AUDIO — vowels tell you less than consonants.
Want to know why these letters work? The letter frequency guide breaks down every letter and position.