How to crack Wordle: 5-letter words to use first

polygon.com:

What’s the best five-letter word to start with when trying to solve the daily Wordle? Some of us have go-to words we rely on to maximize our word-guessing and puzzle-solving skills, and there are some statistically advantageous starting words that feature a variety of commonly used letters. Ideally, you would use a five-letter word with five distinct and commonly used letters on your first guess, like “arise” or “roast.”

Similarly, you should probably avoid starting the daily puzzle with a word like “qapik,” “queue,” or “qajat” — all accepted by Wordle — because they use less common letters in English words and feature repeated vowels.

According to one analysis, the letter E appears most frequently in English-language words featured in a condensed version of the Oxford Dictionary, followed by A, R, I, O, T, N, and S. So starting words like “ratio,” “irate,” “stain,” or “stare” that include those commonly used letters are great options. There are more English-language words that start with S than any other letter, so a starting word that begins with S is also a good first guess. (If the words mentioned earlier in this paragraph come back all gray, maybe try “lurch” or “cloud” for another set of frequently used distinct letters.)

If you want a variety of vowels, the word “ouija” has all but E (and sometimes Y) and is a good starter word, even though J is one of the least frequently used letters in English words, according to the aforementioned analysis.

For those less interested in pure optimization, here’s how Wordle players at Polygon start the puzzle each day.

I aim for a mix of common and uncommon letters in my first guess(es). The more common letters are to see if I can nail down the shape of a word, with those less