5 Letter Words
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There are 8,636 five-letter words in the public-domain ENABLE list. Type a pattern such as c?a?e, add letters to include or exclude, or tap gray, yellow and green tiles for your guesses to narrow the list to the words that still fit.
Find five-letter words
Add guesses with gray, yellow and green tiles
Type a guess, then tap each tile to match the feedback: gray, yellow or green.
Green-shaded words are everyday words. Press any word to copy it.
Best next guesses
| Guess | Expected words left | Worst case | Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| LARES | 185.6 | 552 | 188 |
| RALES | 187.6 | 552 | 178 |
| TARES | 195.9 | 575 | 202 |
| ARLES | 196.7 | 552 | 168 |
| NARES | 201.0 | 555 | 174 |
| RATES | 201.0 | 575 | 186 |
Each guess is one of the 8,636 words still possible, scored as if every remaining word were equally likely to be the answer.
Most common letters in each spot
How it works
Every filter works on the same list, so you can combine them. The pattern box fixes letters in exact spots, contains keeps words that hold every letter you list (type a letter twice to require two of it), and excludes removes any word with those letters. The gray, yellow and green tiles use the standard rules for repeated letters: a yellow tile only counts as many copies as the answer really has.
The best next guesses table is a small calculation, not a hunch. For each candidate guess we compute the feedback it would give against every word still possible, group the words by that feedback, and report the average size of the group you would land in. Lower is better. The worst case is the biggest group, and outcomes is how many different groups the guess creates.
What the list looks like
The 8,636 words split into 2,692 with 1 vowel, 5,089 with 2 vowels, 798 with 3 vowels. The letters that appear in the most words are S, E, A, R, O, I. Only 5,665 of the words have five different letters.
| Starts with | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Words | 497 | 589 | 665 | 457 | 192 | 430 | 415 | 334 | 118 | 134 | 206 | 401 | 444 |
| Starts with | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Words | 200 | 181 | 565 | 53 | 419 | 1,056 | 548 | 117 | 161 | 296 | 13 | 94 | 51 |
Common starting words
Scored against the whole list, the strongest openers are below. The first table uses every word, the second uses only everyday words.
| Guess | Expected words left | Worst case | Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| LARES | 185.6 | 552 | 188 |
| RALES | 187.6 | 552 | 178 |
| TARES | 195.9 | 575 | 202 |
| ARLES | 196.7 | 552 | 168 |
| NARES | 201.0 | 555 | 174 |
| RATES | 201.0 | 575 | 186 |
| Guess | Expected words left | Worst case | Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| RATES | 56.8 | 173 | 154 |
| TALES | 59.8 | 169 | 158 |
| TEARS | 60.4 | 173 | 167 |
| STARE | 63.1 | 173 | 145 |
| TRIES | 63.7 | 191 | 161 |
| RAISE | 63.9 | 167 | 140 |
Scores assume every word is equally likely. Real puzzle answers are not drawn evenly from a dictionary, so treat these as a good opening, not a proof.
Practice questions
Quiz complete
Sources
Common questions
How do I find five-letter words with certain letters?
Type the letters you know into the pattern box (use a question mark for each unknown spot), add letters the word must contain, and list letters it cannot contain. The list shrinks as you type.
How do I use the green, yellow and gray tiles?
Type a guess you already made, then tap each tile until its color matches the feedback you got: gray for a letter that is not in the word, yellow for a letter in the wrong spot, green for the right spot. The solver keeps only words that would have produced exactly that feedback, and it handles repeated letters correctly.
What are the best starting words?
On this list, if every word were equally likely, LARES narrows the field the most (about 186 words left on average). Among everyday words it is RATES (about 57 left). These come from a calculation, not a guess, and you can see how each one is scored in the table above.
Which word list does this use?
The public-domain ENABLE word list, which has 8,636 five-letter words. It is a general word-game dictionary, not the answer list of any particular daily puzzle, so a few newer words are missing and some rare words appear that a given game may reject.
What does the common words filter do?
It keeps 2,655 everyday words, chosen because they appear often in a large collection of ordinary English text. Common words are shaded green and listed first.
Does it work for any word game?
Yes. It works for any game or puzzle that gives you five-letter words, including crosswords and daily word puzzles. Always follow the rules of the game you are playing.
Is anything sent to a server?
No. After the word list loads (about 55 KB), everything runs in your browser. Your clues stay on your device.
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