Best Wordle Starting Word Finder,
every opener ranked by information.

Field guide

How the starting word finder ranks openers.

A good first guess is one whose colors tell you the most. Every possible answer paints your guess in some pattern of gray, yellow and green tiles, and an opener is strong when those patterns split the word list into many small groups instead of a few big ones. This finder measures that split for every five-letter word in a general English dictionary and lists the best.

Where the word list comes from

The candidates are the 8,636 five-letter words of the ENABLE dictionary, a public word list used in many word games. It is a general dictionary, not the answer list of any puzzle. It contains rare words and plurals, and about 31% of its words end in S. Every word counts equally, and the tool never shows or guesses a day's answer. Because the list is broader than the set of answers most games use, the ideal opener for your game can differ a little from this ranking.

The information score

For one opening guess, sort all N words by the pattern they would produce. If a group holds k words, the guess scores:

This is the Shannon entropy of the pattern, in bits. One bit halves the possibilities on average, and the ceiling for this list is log2(8,636), about 13.08 bits, which would pin down the word outright. Next to the bits, the results show the average group size (how many words are left, on average), the worst case, and the number of different patterns the word can produce.

Worked example

TARES, the top word in this list, can show 202 different patterns. Its biggest group is the all-gray pattern with 575 words, about 196 words are left on average, and the score is 6.22 bits. CRANE, a familiar choice, scores 5.39 bits and ranks 771st here. It leaves about 397 words on average and up to 1,036 in the worst case. A gap of 0.8 bits sounds small, but it roughly doubles the words you still have to sort through.

Using the finder

The ranking runs once when the page opens. A background calculation compares all 8,636 words with all 8,636, about 75 million comparisons, and a progress bar shows how far it has got. After that every control responds instantly. Choose how many words to list, require letters (for example, openers containing C), ban letters, or keep only words with five different letters. Type any word into the test box to see its bits, its rank, and the biggest color patterns it could show, with example words for each.

Hard mode

In hard mode every later guess has to reuse the clues you have found, which punishes an opener whose follow-ups are weak. With the box ticked, the finder takes the 50 best openers by one-guess information and looks a step further. It groups the words by the first clue, picks the most informative second guess from the words that still fit, and ranks the openers by the bits known after two guesses. SLATE comes out first (10.22 bits, about 14 words left on average), narrowly ahead of TEALS and TEARS. The usual hard-mode rule only requires reusing revealed hints; this check asks for a second guess that fits the clue completely, a slightly stricter version that matches how most players use hard mode.

Tips

• Compare bits, not names. Differences of a few hundredths of a bit hardly matter. The best word scores 6.22 bits and the median word 4.65, a gap of about 1.6 bits.
• Mind the S. Plurals make S and E look very strong in this dictionary. If your puzzle rarely uses simple plurals, try banning S to see the best openers without it.
• Plan the second guess. The best follow-up depends on the colors you got. Enter them into the Wordle solver to narrow the candidates.

Disclaimer: This tool is an independent fan creation and is not affiliated with, authorized, or endorsed by The New York Times Company. “Wordle” is a trademark of its respective owner and is used here only to describe the type of puzzle. Results come from a general English dictionary, not from any puzzle's answer list. Provided for practice and entertainment only.