Best Wordle Starting Words, Ranked by Information Theory
Most Wordle advice is vibes. "Try ADIEU," someone says, because of the vowels. But we can do better — we can measure how much each opener actually narrows the answer. That's information theory, and it gives us a real ranking.
What is entropy, in 60 seconds?
Entropy measures surprise. When you play a word and see green/yellow/gray tiles, you learn something. A good opener reveals a lot — it leaves fewer possible answers. A bad opener reveals little — you're barely better off than when you started. The best Wordle starters are the ones that, on average, shrink the answer pool the most.
The top 5 openers
- CRANE — Covers C, R, A, N, E. The letters appear across roughly 77% of the Wordle answer list. On average, CRANE leaves you with about 8 possible answers after your first guess.
- SLATE — S, L, A, T, E. A tournament-favorite opener. Dense with common letters and positions that frequently match.
- AUDIO — A, U, D, I, O. Four vowels in one shot. Weak on consonants but unmatched for ruling out vowel-heavy answers fast.
- STARE — S, T, A, R, E. Very similar to SLATE in entropy. Use it if you prefer ending-in-E answers.
- RAISE — R, A, I, S, E. Two vowels, three high-frequency consonants. A balanced choice.
Why not ADIEU?
ADIEU has five distinct vowels but weak consonants — and D isn't as common in answers as R, S, T or L. After playing ADIEU you often still have 40+ candidate answers. CRANE leaves 8. That's a 5× difference in information.
Second-guess strategy
Don't repeat any letters from guess one. If CRANE returned all gray, follow with BLIMP or BUILT — letters you haven't tested yet. The second guess is where casual players waste turns. Treat it like a second opener.
When to adapt
If you play Wordle's hard mode, fixed openers lose value fast — you're locked into confirmed letters. But in normal play, keep two strong openers in rotation and switch based on what you've guessed recently. Variety prevents pattern-fatigue.
Test it yourself
Open our Wordle Solver, play CRANE mentally, enter the resulting tile states, and watch the candidate list collapse. You'll feel the entropy in action.
Information theory won't make every puzzle easy — Wordle still has luck baked in — but it stacks the odds in your favor from move one. Pick your opener, commit to it for a week, and your streak will notice.