Best starting words for 7 letter Wordle
These suggestions come from counting the letters in all 1,200 possible answers in the 7-letter edition of 128ordle. They are the words that test the most common letters in one turn.
The most common letters
The share of answers that contain each letter: E (68%), R (55%), A (51%), T (45%), I (44%), N (38%), O (36%), S (35%).
At the other end, Z, J, Q, X almost never appear. An opener that includes them wastes a tile.
Recommended starting words
These words have no repeated letters and cover the most common ones: CERTAIN, SENATOR, TREASON, ARTICLE, RECITAL, ARSENIC, COASTER, PAINTER.
The top word, CERTAIN, finds 3.3 of its seven letters in an average answer. Every word here is also a possible answer, so now and then one will solve a board outright.
A strong second word
After CERTAIN, try GHOSTLY. No answer of this length avoids every letter of the first word, so this is the one that adds the most new letters. Together they test 13 different letters and find 4.8 letters in an average answer.
On large puzzles, two openers are usually enough. A third word that solves nothing spends one of your few spare guesses.
First and last letters
Answers most often start with C (13%), S (11%), P (9%) and most often end with E (25%), T (13%), R (13%).
Many answers are built around a familiar start such as CON, PRE, DIS or UN, or an ending such as URE, ENT, AGE or FUL. Compound words are common too: AIRPORT, BEDROOM, HAIRCUT, RAINBOW.
How this was worked out
Each letter is scored by how many answers contain it, and each candidate word by the total for its letters. Only words without repeated letters are considered. The whole answer list is used, never the answers for a particular day.