11 unusual 5-letter words to kick off your next Wordle game - Collins Dictionary Language Blog (2024)

If you’ve spent any time on social media over the last few weeks, you’ve probably noticed your feeds being slowly taken over by black, yellow and green squares. Wordle is the name of the game, and this simple daily word game has got everybody playing with language.

Given words are our forte, we’ve compiled a list of unusual five-letter words to fuel your next Wordle sprint. With the perfect blend of vowels and consonants you’d never expect, you might just crush it on the first try. We’d also added definitions, because at least if you don’t win, you learned a new word, right?

P.S. Don’t you worry, we’ve tested all of these options in the game, so you can rest assured they’re available in the Wordle dictionary. Good luck!

ADIEU

Adieu means the same as goodbye. It also has four vowels, what’s not to love?

TARES

Any of various vetch plants, such as Vicia hirsuta (hairy tare) of Eurasia and North Africa.

SOARE

A now obsolete noun meaning a young hawk, but one that does appear in the Wordle dictionary.

DUCAT

Any of various former European gold or silver coins, especially those used in Italy or the Netherlands.

OUIJA

aboardon which aremarkedthelettersof thealphabet;answerstoquestionsarespeltout by apointerorglassheldby thefingertipsof the participants, and are supposedly formed byspiritualforces.

CAROM

In snooker and billiards, ashotin which thecueballis caused tocontactoneobjectball after another.

ERGOT

A disease of cereals and other grasses caused by fungi.

CRAIC

If you are talking about something that you did and you say, ‘the craic was great’, or ‘it was a good craic’, you mean that you had a really good time, especially because everyone was talking, joking, and laughing.

SQUAB

A young unfledged bird, especially a pigeon.

ENOKI

An edible mushroom with a long, slender stem, a small, yellowish cap, and yellowish gills.

AZURE

Azure is used to describe things that are bright blue.

Got a favourite starter word? Share it, or just share your Wordle scores, with us over on Twitter at @CollinsDict.

You can also visit our Wordle Helper, a word-finding tool to help you narrow down your choices of five-letter words based on the results in your Wordle game.

ByRachel Quin
Rachel Quin is a freelance marketer and copywriter with a love of language, books and cats.

All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.

11 unusual 5-letter words to kick off your next Wordle game - Collins Dictionary Language Blog (2024)

FAQs

11 unusual 5-letter words to kick off your next Wordle game - Collins Dictionary Language Blog? ›

When The New York Times purchased Wordle in 2022, six words were removed from this list: agora, pupal, lynch, fibre, slave, and wench. When players connect to the Wordle site, their browser downloads a script that stores all past answers and future, unused Wordle words.

What are good 5 letter words to start with on Wordle? ›

For those less interested in pure optimization, here's how Wordle players at Polygon start the puzzle each day.
  • FRAME, GRAZE, WINDY, PAINT, GOURD, SWING, VAPES. ...
  • AUDIO, FARTS. ...
  • ADIEU, OUIJA. ...
  • READY, PEARS, CHIEF, TOUCH. ...
  • ARISE. ...
  • ROAST, TEARS, MEATS, OUIJA, PIZZA. ...
  • POETS, EARLY, STEAM, BOILS, SPOUT, COUNT, WOUND, STEAK. ...
  • N/A.
Jan 14, 2022

What five letter words are not used by Wordle? ›

When The New York Times purchased Wordle in 2022, six words were removed from this list: agora, pupal, lynch, fibre, slave, and wench. When players connect to the Wordle site, their browser downloads a script that stores all past answers and future, unused Wordle words.

What are the 5 letters most used in Wordle? ›

Most common letters in Wordle
LetterPercentage
s45.8
e44
a41.1
o30.1
17 more rows
Jul 26, 2023

What is the best opening word for Wordle? ›

For Normal mode, SLATE, SALET, ROATE and STARE are known to be some of the best alternative starting words for Wordle. For Hard mode, DEALT is believed to be the best Wordle starting word. However, COALS and NITER were found to be the best performing word pair combination for the opening two guesses.

What is the #1 best word to start with in Wordle? ›

WordleBot rates SLATE as 99/100 for skill, the highest score it awards. However, it gives the same ranking to CRANE, CRATE, SLANT, TRACE and CARTE, so any of those six would be a great choice of Wordle starting word. Alternatively, researchers at MIT have calculated that the best word to start Wordle is SALET.

What is a rare 5 letter word? ›

11 unusual 5-letter words to kick off your next Wordle game
  • ADIEU. Adieu means the same as goodbye. ...
  • TARES. Any of various vetch plants, such as Vicia hirsuta (hairy tare) of Eurasia and North Africa.
  • SOARE. ...
  • DUCAT. ...
  • OUIJA. ...
  • CAROM. ...
  • ERGOT. ...
  • CRAIC.
Feb 1, 2022

What is the rarest word in Wordle? ›

PARER was introduced as a Wordle solution on September 16, 2022. Almost one in two players fail to solve this word as it has a 48% failure rate. Furthermore, it broke 60% of World streaks on the day of its release.

What is the hardest possible word in Wordle? ›

“Parer” proved to be the hardest Wordle solve of 2022. According to Mental Floss, 48% of people who tweeted out their Wordle grids for the Sept. 16 game failed to solve the puzzle. “Foyer” was the second-hardest word, ending more than 30,000 streaks, per Edinburgh Evening News.

Are there banned words in Wordle? ›

What Is Wordle And How Do You Play The Daily Word Game? Wordle, the online word game that has become an internet phenomenon, has banned a number of "insensitive or offensive words" from the game since being purchased by the New York Times in January 2022, including the word "slave."

Are there plurals in Wordle? ›

Wordle, the popular word-guessing game from the New York Times won't use plural words according to an announcement made last week. Over the past year, tens of millions of people tried to guess the five-letter word of the day. A software engineer in Brooklyn named Josh Wardle, created the game as a gift for his partner.

What 5 words use all 25 letters? ›

Five words that use 25 different letters?
  • GLENT.
  • BRICK.
  • JUMPY.
  • VOZHD.
  • WAQFS.
Jan 10, 2022

What is the least common letter used in Wordle? ›

In comparison, the least-common letter in the Wordle dictionary is the letter “J”. If the letter “J” is not present in a term, just 1.20% of all answers can no longer be the solution. Removing the two most-common letters together, “E” and “A”, takes out 69.20% of potential answers.

What is the best 3 word start for Wordle? ›

Mashable's own Wordle expert Caitlin Welsh prefers a different three-word starter combination: SCALY, GUIDE, and THORN.

What is the least used letter? ›

According to the English for Students website, j, q, and z occur the least if you analyze the frequency of each letter in the entries of the 11th Concise Oxford Dictionary.

What are good 5 letter words? ›

List of 5 Letter Words
AboutAlertArgue
EmptyFloorGrass
EnemyFluidGreat
EnjoyFocusGreen
EnterForceGross
115 more rows

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