5 FiveLetterWords
Past Wordle answer Possible answer Accepted guess B tier for first-turn info

START

Yes, START was the Wordle answer on September 11, 2021 (Wordle #84).

As an opener, it rules out about 93.0% of possible answers.

Open Solver with START Open Word Finder

Meaning and pronunciation

Pronunciation: /stɑːt//stɑɹt//stɑrt/

Noun

The beginning of an activity.

“The movie was entertaining from start to finish.”

Noun

A sudden involuntary movement.

“He woke with a start.”

Verb

To begin, commence, initiate.

“to start a stream of water; to start a rumour; to start a business”

Verb

To have its origin (at), begin.

“The speed limit is 50 km/h, starting at the edge of town.”

Alternative forms: sta't, staht

Source: Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0. Corrections.

Wordle status

A word can be a playable guess without being a possible answer.

Playable guess

Yes

Included in the Wordle guess list used by our tools.

Possible answer

Yes

Included among the answers considered by the solver.

Past Wordle answer

Used once

Past Wordle answer: September 11, 2021 (#84).

See the full page for that puzzle: September 11, 2021 (#84).

The possible-answer list is the solver's current list and may change when Wordle adds new answers.

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How START performs as a guess

START is a possible answer, so it would solve about one game in 2,374 when every answer is treated as equally likely.

Played as an opener, it lands at least one colored tile in 81.3% of games, misses completely in 18.7%, and leaves about 167 possible answers on average.

In the previous complete opener benchmark, it ranks #5,048 of 14,855 openers, averaging 3.67 guesses in games solved within six turns.

Try your feedback pattern

Tap the tiles to match your feedback, then see the ranked follow-up guesses.

All gray? Tap a tile to cycle gray → yellow → green.
See strategy patterns

Useful pattern pages

If you only know part of the word, start with one of these matching patterns.

S___T S in the 1st position and T in the 5th position S__R_ S in the 1st position and R in the 4th position _T__T T in the 2nd position and T in the 5th position

Explore lists that match the beginning, ending or letters in START.

First-turn measures

All four describe START used as an opening guess. Entropy is the same idea as “avg ruled out” on a log scale: a higher number means the guess splits the possible answers into more, smaller groups.

4.82 Entropy (bits)
167 Avg remaining
0.04% Exact match
93.0% Avg ruled out
Higher first-turn entropy than about 73% of evaluated openers
1.13 bits below the highest measured first-turn entropy (~5.95 bits)

As an opening guess: previous benchmark

How START performed in the previous complete opener benchmark, against its captured answer snapshot. These research figures are separate from today's solver recommendations. See the data page for the method.

3.67 Avg guesses
99.83% Solved within six
0.70 Spread of game lengths
#5,048 Rank among openers
Opening with START left 4 of the snapshot's answers unsolved after six guesses. A spread of 0.70 means those games clustered within about 0.70 of a guess of the 3.67 average. It ranks #5,048 of 14,855 openers by average guesses in games solved within six.
1 guess
1
2 guesses
49
3 guesses
915
4 guesses
1,159
5 guesses
210
6 guesses
16
Top-ranked in the current bounded policy screen: SLANT. The policy minimizes misses within six first, then average guesses among wins (3.46 for the leader). Compare the ranking measures

Composition

4/5 unique
1 vowels
Common:
ARST

Feedback chances

Any hit (G/Y)
81%
Green tile
37%
All gray
19%

Example solver route

R O A T E
G R I S T
S M A R T
S T A R T

One example route used by the solver.

This solver benchmark reaches START in 4 guesses.

Feedback distribution

START can come back 95 different ways. These are the most likely, and how many of the possible answers give each one:

444 answers
273 answers
225 answers
119 answers
119 answers
97 answers
72 answers
69 answers
59 answers
56 answers
53 answers
47 answers
40 answers
37 answers
37 answers
35 answers
33 answers
27 answers
27 answers
26 answers
24 answers
23 answers
22 answers
22 answers
21 answers
20 answers
20 answers
18 answers
17 answers
14 answers

Letter-value totals

Base letter-value totals for START; these do not show whether either game accepts the word.

Scrabble

S1T1A1R1T1
Total: 5 points

Words With Friends

Total: 5 points

Scores shown are base values without double/triple letter or word bonuses.

Try next

CLONE GOIER RACER CLINE TOILE HOISE

Strategy after playing START

What the solver recommends next for each way the board can respond to START.

Quick reference

Largest feedback groups after playing START:

19% chance
Suggested:
CLONE
11% chance
Suggested:
GOIER
9% chance
Suggested:
CLONE

Follow-ups for common patterns

Ranked follow-up guesses for the 10 most common feedback patterns.

18.7% →
CLONE 5.92 bits
11.5% →
GOIER 4.96 bits
9.5% →
CLONE 5.30 bits
5.0% →
RACER 4.51 bits
5.0% →
CLINE 5.22 bits
4.1% →
TOILE 5.08 bits
3.0% →
CLINE 4.78 bits
2.9% →
HOISE 4.74 bits
2.5% →
CLINE 4.76 bits
2.4% →
TONER 4.37 bits

Research on START

Game-tree analysis and word research for START, with an explanation for each figure.

Optimal play

Opening with START, a proven-optimal strategy averages 3.73 guesses and ranks #6,614 of 14,855 legal openers. The best proven opener, TARSE, averages 3.55.

In hard mode it averages 3.87 guesses at best and is rank #3,322 of the 7,453 openers that can still guarantee a solve within six guesses.

Our six-turn simulation says 3.67, at or below the proven-optimal 3.73, because the two figures score different answer lists.

These figures come from exhaustive game-tree search and are exact for the NYT lists of July 2023 (3,158 answers). They do not use the site's working answer pool.

How it sounds

One syllable Say it STAHRT.

Rhymes with HEART SMART APART CHART CARTE

Related meanings

In WordNet's sense inventory, START is a kind of beginning or point.

Synonyms get FIRST go part starting beginning

Opposites finish stop end

Familiarity and learning

Frequency
START sits in the common band of the wordfreq scale, appearing about 363 times per million words of written English; the band marks it as an everyday word almost every player will know.
Learner level
Appears in beginner learner vocabulary (CEFR-J level A1); among the first words English learners study.
Age of acquisition
Typically learned around age 4, by Glasgow Norms speaker ratings.
Imageability
Imageability score: 41 of 100. Raters gave it a middle-range score.
Dominant sense
Lancaster raters associated it most strongly with sight (3.6 of 5).

In a sentence

I was about to start.
© tatoeba.org contributor Swift (CC BY 2.0 FR)
He was about to start.
© tatoeba.org contributor CK (CC BY 2.0 FR)

Sources: Optimal-play values: Alex Selby's exhaustive Wordle analysis (MIT); Pronunciation: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (BSD); Word relations: Open English WordNet, 2025 edition (CC BY 4.0); Word frequency: wordfreq (data CC BY-SA 4.0); Learner levels: CEFR-J Wordlist ver 1.5, Tono Laboratory, TUFS; Glasgow Norms (CC BY 4.0); Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms (CC BY 4.0).