Wordle has remained ever-popular as part of the morning routine for millions. And while many of you have already honed your strategy for solving the daily puzzle — with or without help from our daily Wordle hints and answers — there's always room for improvement.
Even though I've been playing Wordle for years, (and I've also analyzed every Wordle answer) I decided to give ChatGPT a shot to see if it could provide me any fresh insights. Here's the prompts I tried - and some of the answers its gave surprised me.
Most common letters
I started off with a fairly basic query, and asked ChatGPT for the most common letters in Wordle answers. It not only gave me that list, but also gave me a list of the most common first letters and last letters.
It then gave me a bit of advice: "Since E is the most frequent letter overall, and S is the most common starting letter, words containing these letters tend to be good opening guesses. Words like "SLATE", "CRANE", and "TRACE" are often recommended as strong starting words."
This isn't too original — the New York Times' Wordlebot will offer similar advice. We also made up our own list of the best Wordle start words.
Best Wordle strategy based on letter frequencies
Following ChatGPT's suggestion, I then asked it for the best Wordle strategy based on letter frequency. It then offered me five tips:
Its first piece of advice was to start with a strong opening word (SLATE, CRANE, TRACE, SLANT, RAISE).
Next, it said to optimize my second guess:
- If your first word reveals some correct letters but in the wrong place, rearrange them in the next word.
- If your first word doesn’t hit many letters, use a second guess that covers different high-frequency letters.
- Example: If you start with "CRANE" and get few hits, follow up with "MOUNT" to cover O, U, T, and M.
Then, ChatGPT said to look for common word patterns:
- Words ending in E (e.g., GRAPE, STONE, FLARE)
- Words with double letters (e.g., SHEEP, GLASS, HAPPY)
- Words with common consonant pairings (e.g., TH, CH, SH, ST, TR, CL, BR)
After that, ChatGPT told me to avoid wasting guesses, specifically, not to use a repeat letter unless you have a strong idea that it repeats, and don't use rare letters like Q, X, and Z "unless you're desperate."
ChatGPT's fifth piece of advice was to use word patterns to my advantage.
"If you know a word starts with S and ends with E, test words like SHORE, SLATE, SLOPE instead of random guesses.
If you have _IGHT, consider LIGHT, NIGHT, MIGHT, FIGHT—narrow it down strategically."
Best follow-up words
ChatGPT then asked if I would like to create a strategy around a specific starting word. I went with my usual "Stare" to see what would happen.
I found this advice pretty insightful — it could really help narrow down things.
What's the most difficult Wordle answer?
Some Wordles are trickier than others, so I asked ChatGPT what has been the most difficult Wordle, and what makes for a hard answer.
ChatGPT provided me a list of streak-enders, and then followed it up with things that make a Wordle answer hard:
Repeated letters (like RARER, FLUFF, or MOMMY)
Rare letters (like J, Q, X, Z)
Words without common vowels (like CRYPT, MYRRH, or GLYPH)
Obscure words (like EUCHRE or FJORD)
Tackling "_ight" words
One of the trickiest situations when solving Wordle is when you get three or four letters correct, but there are multiple options for the last letter — and you don't have enough guesses left.
So, I asked ChatGPT the following: "If I have _ight but only two guesses left, how should I figure out the last letter?"
First, it gave me a list of possible answers: (BLIGHT, BRIGHT, FLIGHT, FIGHT, MIGHT, NIGHT, RIGHT, SIGHT, TIGHT, WIGHT). Oddly, a few of these had six letters, which obviously wouldn't work.
ChatGPT's next piece of advice was to try a completely different word that would eliminate several choices at once:
- Since you have two guesses, your next word should test multiple possible letters at once. A good choice would be:
- "BLIMP" → Covers B, L, M, and P
- "CRUSH" → Covers C, R, U, and H
- "WOUND" → Covers W, N, D, and O
If that didn't work, then ChatGPT advised to go with probability.
- If you’re completely stuck, the most common _IGHT words in Wordle history are:
- RIGHT
- SIGHT
- NIGHT
- LIGHT
- MIGHT
- So if you have no other clues, RIGHT or NIGHT would be the best bets.
ChatGPT's advice here is a bit off, though. Wordle has yet to repeat any of its answers, so if you were to use RIGHT, SIGHT, NIGHT, or LIGHT, you would be wasting a turn. As of this writing, MIGHT, WIGHT, FIGHT, and TIGHT have not yet been used.
Why you shouldn't use "S" as a last letter
For a while, I used TARES as a starting word, but according to ChatGPT, it's not the best option. That's because Wordle very rarely has an answer that ends in "S."
- Estimated Frequency of "S" as the Last Letter in Wordle Answers
- Historically, only about 2–3% of Wordle solutions end in S.
- Compare that to E, which is by far the most common last letter.
Why is that? It's because most words that end in "S" are "just plurals (e.g., "BOOKS," "PLANS"), which Wordle typically avoids," responded ChatGPT.
"Some rare exceptions include words like "GLASS" or "CLASS", where S is not just a plural marker."
Most common last letter
While getting the first letter correct is always handy, ChatGPT also offered some tips if you know the last letter of a Wordle answer.
What's tomorrow's Wordle answer?
Can ChatGPT help you cheat at Wordle? Sadly no. When I asked it for tomorrow's answer, I got this reply:
"I can't predict or access future Wordle answers, as they are kept secret by the game. However, if you want strategies to improve your guessing or common word patterns, I can definitely help with that! Let me know how you'd like to refine your approach. 😊"
If you're stuck, you could always check out today's Wordle answer, which we update every day for those who are looking for a little tip or hint.
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