Wordle answers, best starting words, and 7 tips to win

Wordle is taking social media by storm thanks to its ease of access, simple premise, and unique social media hook. But, while all your friends may be celebrating their consistent wins or close guesses on Twitter, not everyone can be a wordsmith when it comes to random five-letter words. In this guide, we outline the basics of Wordle and list 20 amazing starter words to use. If that doesn’t help, we’ve also got some additional tips and even two separate answer lists worth perusing.

How to play Wordle

One of the best things about Wordle that's propelled the game’s viral nature is how easy it is to access. Unlike most word games that require an app download, Wordle can be played on any web browser simply by going to the Wordle website.

Once you get there you’ll be shown these rules.

• Players have six tries to guess a daily five-letter word that’s the same for all players.
• If a letter appears yellow, that means it’s in the word but is in the wrong place
• If the letter appears green, that means the right letter is in the right place.
• If a letter shows as grey, it means it’s the wrong letter in the wrong place.

To make a guess, all you do is type your desired word using the on-screen keyboard and hit enter. The letters of the word will display in the above-listed colors as you continue to guess.

Once you’ve finished guessing, you can see the record of your guesses and have the option to share your results on social media if you wish. The daily word refreshes each day at 12 a.m. local time, so come back for another game within 24 hours if your first guess doesn’t work out.

7 tips to always win at Wordle

Before getting specific with various word lists that may help you solve any number of daily words, let’s start with a few generalized tips that may point you in the right direction without being too overt.

1. Use “normal” words: According to Andrew Taylor on YouTube, Wordle is fairly conservative in the words it uses, with around 2,000 possible answers and 13,000 potential guesses. There are obviously way more five-letter words in the dictionary, but the design of Wordle is more likely to leverage words you hear in your daily life.
2. Use lots of vowels: Lots of top-tier Wordle players swear by choosing starter words that have lots of vowels in them. You’ll see evidence of this in our starter word list below. Vowels typically fill out the middle of words, so, if you know which ones are in your five-letter word, it may be easier to figure out the edges.
3. Plurals, particularly “es”: Plurals are the bedrock of any good word-based game, and Wordle is no exception. Using words that end in “s” and particularly “es” has proven to be valuable. The “es” variant is preferred, of course, because it features a vowel as well.
4. Wheel of Fortune rules work: You’ve likely seen on Wheel of Fortune that contestants start with R, S, T, L, N, and E in the final puzzle. That’s because those letters are the most common in the English language. There are certain letter patterns that work better than others, but they’re almost all based on this simple concept.
5. Avoid words with rare letters: This probably goes without saying, but you should probably avoid using words that have rarer letters like X and Z. It’ll help a lot if you happen to guess correct letters, but the chances of you actually doing that are slim.
6. Don’t forget Color Blind Mode and Dark Theme: If you’re having trouble differentiating from the game’s default color scheme, turn on Color Blind Mode or Dark Theme to get a clearer view. Press the settings cog in the top right of the screen to turn them on. These toggles may offer just the right amount of clarity you need to win.
7. Use a Wordle tool: If all these tips fail, try using the Unwordle tool at the link. Developed by Mahmood Hikmet, the web-based app allows you to insert your starting word and offers a list of options for the best words to guess next. It’s not perfect, but it’s a neat way to get a little hint without outright cheating.

What are the best starter words for Wordle?

Everyone has their favorite starter words, but here are 20 popular choices we’ve seen based on algorithms, the above-listed tips, and verified effectiveness.

• REAIS
• SLATE
• AEGIS
• LARES
• RALES
• TARES
• NARES
• ARLES
• SIREN
• RAISE
• QUERY
• RENTS
• SNARE
• EARNS
• STOAE
• SANER
• CANOE
• TEARS
• STEAM
• ADIEU

As you can see, most of these words have plurals and lots of vowels. No single word can get you to the daily word every single time, but these 20 words are very good suggestions.

Wordle answer list

If you really want to be an evil person and check out the list of around 2,000 potential answers for today’s Wordle, you can do so by clicking these two links courtesy of Andrew Taylor.

The first list features answers for the normal mode that most players are enjoying, while a second list exists for Hard Mode answers. Hard Mode can be accessed via the settings cog in the right-hand corner of the screen. While in Hard Mode, all revealed hints have to be used in subsequent guesses, making it much tougher to figure out missing parts of the word.

• Normal Mode Wordle answer list
• Hard Mode Wordle answer list