Best Wordle start words: Strategies, tips, how to win

As we explain here, Wordle is an addictive daily word game available online. You try to guess a five-letter word in six tries. The game tells you if the letters you picked are in the word at all, and if they’re in the right place. If you have the right letter in the right spot, it shows up green. A correct letter in the wrong spot shows up yellow. A letter that isn’t in the word in any spot shows up gray. 

But as with anything simple, it’s fun to make Wordle complicated. Players have all kinds of strategies for choosing their starter words. ADIEU is popular, to test out four vowels. (Stats geek Nate Silver thinks ADIEU is a “terrible first guess.”) Programmer and game designer Tyler Glaiel explains why the mathematically optimal first word is ROATE, which isn’t a word I’d heard of.

ADIEU has become such a cliche starter there’s even a subgenre of Wordle tweets about it. Wrote one person, “On the day that the wordle answer is ‘adieu’ social media will implode.”

I understand the argument that there are only five vowels (and sometimes Y), so you don’t need to figure those out immediately. But eh, what can I say, I like to know the vowels, it helps me narrow down my options. I’ve started with ADIEU, but these days I also like to start with REGAL, just to get the E and A information known, and to see if my fave consonants are involved. AISLE is also a favorite for me, using three vowels and two favorite consonants. 

And if you just want to get used to the game or test out strategies, my friend Chad points out that there’s a playable Wordle archive on which to practice.

I asked Wordle creator Josh Wardle (he hangs out with Mike Monopoly and Stacy Scrabble) to share his techniques — haven’t heard back yet, but if he responds, I’ll definitely share. In the meantime, though, I asked CNET staffers to share their Wordle strategies and favorite starter words. Hope it gives you a BOOST or maybe a NUDGE.

Big AUDIO dynamite

“AUDIO. Get 4 out of 5 vowels out of the way immediately and focus on narrowing down consonants. Don’t be afraid to deviate from your regular starter word, though — sometimes a random word that pops into your head ends up being way more intuitive than you could have ever imagined.” —Ashley Esqueda

A blank STARE

“My go-to is STARE. I’m inspired a…