Best Starting Words for 5-Letter Word Games
The best starting words use five different, common letters. In Word Guess's 867-word answer list the most common letters are E, A, R, T, O, S, I and L, and first guesses built from them, like ARISE, RAISE, TRACE and STARE, leave only about 20 possible answers on average. Skip repeated letters on guess one, then try five fresh letters, such as RAISE followed by COUNT.
What the colours mean
After every guess, each tile changes colour to tell you about that letter. On GameLake's Word Guess:
- Orange: the right letter in the right spot.
- Teal with a small dot: the letter is in the word, but in a different spot.
- Dark: the letter is not in the word (or not as many times as you typed it).
If you're used to popular daily word games such as Wordle, orange does the job of green and teal does the job of yellow. The dot on teal tiles means you never have to rely on colour alone.
Which letters are most common?
A first guess is mostly about testing letters, so we counted how many of the 867 answers in Word Guess's English list contain each letter at least once. Five letters each turn up in nearly a third of the answers or more:
| Letter | Answers containing it | Share |
|---|---|---|
| E | 424 | 48.9% |
| A | 367 | 42.3% |
| R | 354 | 40.8% |
| T | 282 | 32.5% |
| O | 256 | 29.5% |
| S | 254 | 29.3% |
| I | 236 | 27.2% |
| L | 228 | 26.3% |
| N | 207 | 23.9% |
| C | 177 | 20.4% |
At the other end, X, Q, J and Z each appear in fewer than 11 answers (about 1% each), so they are a waste of a slot early on. Position matters too: S starts 17% of answers, E ends 22% of them, and T (13%) and Y (10%) are also common last letters.
The best starting words, tested
Common letters are a good rule of thumb, but the real test is how much a word narrows things down. For each starting word, we coloured it against every one of the 867 answers, exactly as the game does, and counted how many answers would still fit those colours. The average is how many words you would typically have left after your first guess.
| First guess | Answers left on average | Worst case |
|---|---|---|
| ARISE | 19.6 | 50 |
| RAISE | 20.1 | 50 |
| TRACE | 20.3 | 53 |
| STARE | 21.3 | 63 |
| ALERT | 22.7 | 58 |
| CRANE | 23.2 | 66 |
| SLATE | 23.3 | 66 |
| ADIEU | 49.4 | 103 |
| AUDIO | 73.1 | 171 |
Any word from the top of the table is a great choice. Across the whole list of 5,052 allowed guesses, only ORATE (19.3) and IRATE (19.5) did slightly better than ARISE, and neither is ever an answer, so ARISE and RAISE give you the same information plus a small chance of winning in one.
Why not a vowel-heavy word? ADIEU and AUDIO test four vowels, but U and D are much rarer than R, T, S and L, and most words have only one or two vowels anyway. You find the vowels quickly with ARISE; the consonants are what really split the list.
A good second word
If your first guess comes back mostly dark, don't spend the second one reusing those letters. A second word with five new common letters tests ten letters in two guesses, and the right pair leaves only two or three answers on average:
| First two guesses | Answers left on average |
|---|---|
| RAISE, then COUNT | 2.5 |
| CRANE, then MOIST | 2.3 |
| STARE, then CLOUD | 2.7 |
If your first guess already lit up two or three tiles, it is usually better to guess a word that fits those clues. But when only a handful of answers are left, a word that tests the letters they don't share can be quicker, even if it can't be the answer itself:
Can letters repeat?
Yes. 258 of the 867 answers (29.8%) have at least one letter twice, such as THERE, STILL, SHEEP and APPLE. That's why a repeated letter is a poor first guess (it tests only four letters) but worth considering later, when your clues fit a word like SHEEP.
Doubled letters are coloured one copy at a time. Letters in the right spot are counted first, and each extra copy only lights up if the answer still has another one to match:
A simple plan for every game
- Open with a strong word such as ARISE, RAISE, TRACE or STARE, and stick with it so you learn its patterns.
- If you got one colour or none, play five new letters next (COUNT, CLOUD, MOIST or similar).
- Once you have two or three clues, only guess words that fit all of them.
- Think about position: S likes the start, E, T and Y like the end, and A is the most common middle letter.
- Stuck between a few words? Pick one that also tests a letter that would rule the others out.
- Remember doubles. If nothing fits, try a word with a repeated letter.
Daily, Hard mode and Teach me on GameLake
The Daily word is the same for everyone playing in the same language and changes at midnight, your local time. It works through the whole answer list in a fixed shuffled order, so a word won't come back until all 867 have been used. Easy, Medium and Hard are practice games you can replay as often as you like: Easy picks from the most common third of the words and lets you reveal one letter, and Hard makes you keep every orange letter in place and reuse every teal letter. In Hard mode a five-new-letters second guess is only allowed if your first guess came back all dark.
On Easy and Medium, Teach me tells you what you know so far and suggests a word that fits every clue while testing the most useful new letters. With no clues yet, its suggestion is RAISE, which matches the table above.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best starting word for a 5-letter word game?
A word with five different common letters. Tested on GameLake's Word Guess answers, ARISE, RAISE, TRACE and STARE do best, leaving about 20 of 867 possible answers on average.
Can the answer have the same letter twice?
Yes. About 3 in 10 Word Guess answers have a repeated letter, such as SHEEP or STILL. A letter only lights up as many times as it appears in the answer.
What do the colours mean in Word Guess?
Orange means the right letter in the right spot. Teal with a small dot means the letter is in the word but in another spot. Dark means it isn't in the word.
Is ADIEU a good starting word?
It's not the best. It finds vowels, but leaves about 49 answers on average, against about 20 for ARISE or RAISE, because common consonants like R, S and T split the list better.
Should I use the same starting word every day?
It's a good habit. You learn what each colour pattern from your word usually means, which makes your second guess faster and better.
Does the Daily word repeat?
Not for a long time. The Daily works through all 867 answers in a fixed shuffled order, one a day, before any word comes round again.