The Surprising Truth About Wordle's Starting Words

It might come as a surprise to many Wordle players that the most popular starting words used do not always equal success in the game. The New York Times bought the daily game in 2022, and in December last year, two of its staff crunched some playing data with interesting results. Josh Katz and Aatish Bhatia analyzed 515 million Wordle games and found that one of the most popular first-word choices was "Adieu." However, although it was in the top 30 most-used starting words, it was actually not that helpful in the long run when it came to solving the daily puzzle.

Katz and Bhatia wrote, "The strategy seems to make sense: Figure out the vowels, and the other letters will fall into place." But their analysis showed that starting with "ADIEU" or "AUDIO" actually puts human players at a disadvantage. On average, players who started with "ADIEU" needed about a third of a turn more to solve their Wordles compared to players who started with "SLATE," which adds up to 132 extra turns over the course of a year.

The concept of Wordle is simple enough. Players must guess a secret five-letter word within six attempts or less. A color-coded tile system provides feedback to help you along the way. A green tile indicates the correct letter in the correct position, while a yellow tile signifies the letter is in the word but in the wrong place. A gray tile means the letter is not in the word at all.

'Wordle' #1,159, Clues for Wednesday, August 21

Hint #1: Today's Wordle answer is a noun.

Hint #2: There are no repeated letters.

Hint #3: The word contains one vowel.

Hint #4: The answer begins with 'M'.

Hint #5: Today's word is related to gardening.

'Wordle' #1,159, Answer for Wednesday, August 21

The answer to today's Wordle is "mulch."

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, mulch is "a protective covering (as of sawdust, compost, or paper) spread or left on the ground to reduce evaporation, maintain even soil temperature, prevent erosion, control weeds, enrich the soil, or keep fruit (such as strawberries) clean."

Congratulations if you got it right, but don’t worry if you didn’t. Wordle updates every day at midnight in your local time zone, at which point the next puzzle becomes available. Newsweek will be back with another round of hints and tips for each new game.