Science Has Figured Out The Worst Starting Word In Wordle

You might think you are good at Wordle, with your favorite starting word and all that. But a real Wordle expert can complete puzzles using the worst starting word as determined recently by a computer and TikTok user.

Yeah, sure, there are many, many guides and tips out there for the crazy popular Wordle, a free-to-play browser-based puzzle game that continues to fill my Twitter timeline every day. What’s the best starting word, how to best use your limited guesses, etc. But maybe you want a challenge. Perhaps Wordle is too easy for you, after weeks of playing it every day. Well then, bucko, I got a starting word for you to use next time: Xylyl

As spotted by Gamespot, xylyl is the worst starting word according to TikTok user Crvlwanek. After hearing someone else say that irate is the best starting word to use, Crvlwanek decided to use a computer script to help them get to see if that was true. To figure out the best starting word, they created a custom script that used frequency analysis on each letter of every possible word found in Wordle’s entire word list. Each word was also given a score based on the frequency of each individual letter and from all that data, an optimal starting word was found. That word, by the way, is: Later.

However, all this work also resulted in discovering that xylyl is the worst starting word. It’s pretty easy to see why, considering how few words are spelled similar to xylyl or even use some of its letters.

For those wondering (and who haven’t already looked online) xylyl isn’t a Star Wars planet from the Expanded Universe. Instead, it’s actually the name of any of several isomeric monovalent radicals C8H9 derived from the three xylenes by the removal of a hydrogen atom. Duh.