Best starting words

Your first word decides half the game. We tested every candidate against all the hidden words and counted how many tiles take a colour on average.

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First guess result

For English

WordGreenYellowTotal
STARE0.711.241.95
ALERT0.471.441.91
LASER0.391.491.88
REACT0.531.331.86
HEART0.501.351.85
EARTH0.361.491.85
SCARE0.681.161.84
SHARE0.751.091.84

“Total” is how many tiles turn green or yellow on average in one guess, computed over 595 hidden words.

As a second word, LOGIC shares no letters with STARE and colours another 1.18 tiles on average.

The most common letters

The share of hidden words that contain each letter:

E 47.4%, A 42.5%, R 40.8%, T 32.8%, S 30.8%, O 29.7%, L 27.1%, I 26.9%, C 22.5%, N 22.5%, H 22.2%, U 16.1%

Words most often start with S, C, B and end with E, T, Y. 28.6% of the words have a repeated letter.

For Uzbek words

WordTotal
SHOIRA1.69
ISHORA1.69
DOIRA1.69
IRODA1.69
RADIO1.69

Most common letters: A 57.5%, O 39.3%, I 38%, R 25.3%, N 22.9%, L 22.6%.

For Russian words

WordTotal
ТОСКА1.73
ОКЕАН1.72
КАТЕР1.71
АКТЕР1.71
КОРМА1.70

Most common letters: А 49.5%, О 41.3%, Р 32.8%, К 31.9%, Е 28.8%, Т 28.1%.

How this was computed

Candidates are hidden words with five different letters. Each was scored with the game’s own rule against lists of 616, 640 and 595 words. The numbers shift slightly when a list is updated (last computed 2026-11-02). Other sites use other lists, so their best words differ.

FAQ

Should I always start with the same word?

It helps, because you learn to read the result faster. But changing it is more fun, and the difference is small.

Can the best opener be the answer?

Yes, the table uses words from the hidden list.

Do these numbers apply in hard mode?

For the first word, yes. After that hard mode limits your choices.

See also

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