How we measured it
A good first guess splits the possible answers into many small groups. After you guess, the colours you see put you in one of those groups, and the smaller it is, the closer you are.
For every five-letter word in our list (8,609 words) we coloured it against every possible answer, using the standard scoring of popular daily five-letter word games, and counted how many answers share each colour pattern. From that we report:
- Average answers left – if every answer is equally likely, how many are still possible after this guess. Lower is better.
- Information (bits) – the same idea measured as entropy. Higher is better.
- Worst case – the largest group, i.e. the most answers you could be left with.
We do not use any game’s own answer list. Instead we model “possible answers” in two ways and show both.
Scenario 1: common words, no plurals (recommended)
Possible answers are the 2,084 five-letter words in SCOWL up to size 35 that our simple rule does not flag as a plural or past tense: we drop words ending in -S, -ES or -ED whose stem is also in the list (CARDS, BAKED). This is a spelling heuristic, not a full grammatical analysis. We consider this scenario closer to how daily games choose answers, but that is an assumption. Best openers that can themselves be the answer:
| Rank | Word | Answers left (avg) | Bits | Worst case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | RAISE | 52.5 | 5.92 | 141 |
| 2 | ARISE | 53.9 | 5.87 | 141 |
| 3 | IRATE | 55 | 5.85 | 166 |
| 4 | AROSE | 57.7 | 5.8 | 165 |
| 5 | SANER | 60.2 | 5.79 | 188 |
| 6 | SNARE | 60.5 | 5.83 | 188 |
| 7 | STARE | 61 | 5.86 | 194 |
| 8 | ALTER | 61.1 | 5.75 | 164 |
| 9 | LATER | 62 | 5.73 | 164 |
| 10 | SLATE | 62.2 | 5.88 | 193 |
Scenario 2: all common words, plurals included
If plurals count as answers (3,476 words), words ending in S become strong, because so many answers end in S:
| Rank | Word | Answers left (avg) | Bits | Worst case | Can be an answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LARES | 72 | 6.18 | 207 | no |
| 2 | ARLES | 72 | 6.13 | 207 | no |
| 3 | RALES | 72.1 | 6.16 | 207 | no |
| 4 | TARES | 75.5 | 6.24 | 247 | no |
| 5 | TALES | 77.6 | 6.15 | 210 | yes |
| 6 | RATES | 78 | 6.14 | 247 | yes |
| 7 | ALOES | 79.3 | 5.98 | 163 | no |
| 8 | REALS | 80.9 | 6.06 | 207 | yes |
| 9 | SANER | 81.5 | 6.02 | 253 | yes |
| 10 | NARES | 81.9 | 6.03 | 264 | no |
Popular openers, scored the same way
| Word | Answers left (avg) | Bits | Worst case | Can be an answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RAISE | 52.5 | 5.92 | 141 | yes |
| ARISE | 53.9 | 5.87 | 141 | yes |
| IRATE | 55 | 5.85 | 166 | yes |
| STARE | 61 | 5.86 | 194 | yes |
| TARES | 61.6 | 5.8 | 194 | no |
| LARES | 61.9 | 5.71 | 171 | no |
| SLATE | 62.2 | 5.88 | 193 | yes |
| CRATE | 63.7 | 5.84 | 209 | yes |
| TRACE | 64.5 | 5.85 | 209 | yes |
| CRANE | 67.9 | 5.77 | 223 | yes |
| ADIEU | 107.8 | 4.9 | 238 | no |
| AUDIO | 171.9 | 4.52 | 392 | yes |
These are scenario 1 figures. The vowel-heavy openers ADIEU and AUDIO rank far lower (1,181 and 4,283 of 8,609): vowels are easy to place later, while common consonants like R, S and T split the answers better.
What the numbers do not say
- They assume every possible answer is equally likely. Real games pick answers by hand.
- They score only the first guess. A good second guess matters as much – the 5-letter word solver calculates it from your actual colours.
- Our list is ENABLE plus SCOWL levels, not any game’s own list, so rankings could shift slightly with another list.