Common Wordle Letters: Frequencies and Patterns

Letters are not equal. In Wordle, some letters turn up in nearly half of all answers, while others barely appear at all. Knowing which letters are common — and, just as importantly, where they usually sit — makes every guess smarter. This guide walks through the numbers from published studies of past Wordle answers: the most common letters overall, the full A-to-Z ranking, and how position changes everything.

The most common letters, overall

Ask any frequency study and the top of the list looks the same. E is the most common letter in Wordle answers by a clear margin — it shows up in about 12% of all the letters in answers, and in roughly 46% of answers themselves. A is next at about 10%, then R at 8%, O at 7%, T at 6% and L at 5%. Those six letters do a huge share of the work. If your opener tests E, A and R, you have already covered the three most common letters in the game. The rest of the top ten — I, S, N and C — are close behind. A good starting word is really just a way of testing as many of these letters as possible in one guess, which is why CRANE and SALET keep topping the lists in our guide to the best Wordle starting words.

The full A-to-Z ranking

Here is the whole alphabet, ranked by how often each letter appears in Wordle answers, from studies of the full 2,309-word answer list:

Rank	Letter	Rank	Letter
1	E	14	M
2	A	15	H
3	R	16	G
4	O	17	B
5	T	18	F
6	L	19	Y
7	I	20	W
8	S	21	K
9	N	22	V
10	C	23	X
11	U	24	Z
12	D	25	J
13	P	26	Q

The top half of the table is where your guesses should live. The bottom five — V, X, Z, J, Q — turn up so rarely that testing them early is almost always a mistake.

Where letters sit: position by position

A letter’s frequency is only half the story. Where it sits matters just as much. E is the most common letter overall, but it rarely starts a word — it loves the end of one. S is the opposite: the most common starting letter in answers, but it almost never ends one. Here is how the positions break down, using the top two letters at each spot from Josh Bernoff’s analysis of past answers:

Position	Most common	Second most common
1	S	C
2	A	O
3	A	I
4	E	N
5	E	Y

Read it as a map. Position 1 belongs to consonants — S, C, B, T and A lead. Position 2 is vowel country: A and O. Position 3 is another vowel spot (A, I). Position 4 swings back to consonants and E. Position 5 is E’s favourite home, followed by Y, T, R and L. That is why a guess like STARE feels so natural: S starts, T sits in the middle, and the vowels land where vowels like to be. It is also why a yellow E in first position tells you more than it looks — E is almost never first, so it must be hiding later in the word.

Vowels vs consonants

Most Wordle answers have one or two vowels. About 90% of answers contain E or A (or both), and E alone appears in roughly 46% of them. That is why testing a vowel early is rarely wrong — but testing four vowels at once, as AUDIO does, is usually overkill. The sweet spot is two vowels in your opener: enough to learn about the vowel pattern, with three slots left for consonants. Consonants do the heavy lifting in the middle of the word, and a guess with no consonant information is a guess half-blind.

Letter pairs and clusters that keep showing up

Letters travel in pairs. The most common pairs in Wordle answers are ER, ST, AR, RE and NT — and you will see them everywhere once you start looking. The same goes for clusters: words that start with ST-, SH-, CR-, CH-, SP- or GR-, and words that end in -CH, -ER, -SE, -LY, -AL or -CK. Then there are the word families: -IGHT (LIGHT, NIGHT, RIGHT, FIGHT), -ATCH (WATCH, CATCH, PATCH, MATCH) and -OUND (SOUND, ROUND, FOUND, HOUND). These families are the trap in Wordle — when you have _IGHT, there are a dozen possible first letters, and only one is right. Knowing the families exist is the first step to handling them: when you spot one, slow down and count the options before guessing.

The rare letters, honestly

At the bottom of the table, Q, Z, X and J each appear in under 1% of answers. A few facts from the studies: no answer in the studied lists starts with X, and none ends in J, Q or V. That doesn’t mean those letters never appear — JAZZY and QUAKE exist as guesses — but as answers they are vanishingly rare. Double letters are a different story: about 10% of answers have a repeated letter, so a double is uncommon but far from impossible. And plurals? Fewer than 5% of answers end in S, which is why a final S in your opener teaches you almost nothing.

How to use this in your next game

Start with the top of the table: an opener built from E, A, R, O, T, L, I, S and N. Use position knowledge on guess two: if you know the answer has an E but not where, try it late in the word. If you know a consonant is in the word, remember which positions it favours. Watch for pairs: when you have ER or ST, think about the clusters that follow them. And don’t chase rare letters early — if your first two guesses have ruled out the common letters, only then start thinking about the uncommon ones. The numbers don’t play the game for you. They just stop you wasting guesses on letters that were never likely. Try it on today’s Wordle and see how much faster the second guess feels.

Where these numbers come from

The figures in this guide come from published frequency studies of Wordle’s answer list — including work by Dr. Drang, Josh Bernoff and Tom’s Guide — all of which counted the same 2,309 answers and reached similar conclusions. The pattern is even older than Wordle: researchers at Cornell, and the designers of Morse code before them, counted letter frequency in English text and found the same leaders at the top. Wordle’s answers follow the same shape, because they are drawn from the same language. If you want the other side of the numbers, our guide to how many Wordle words there are explains the 2,309-word answer list itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most common letter in Wordle?

E. It appears in roughly 46% of Wordle answers, and in about 12% of all the letters in answers. A is second, then R, O and T.

How many vowels are in most Wordle answers?

One or two. About 90% of answers contain E or A (or both). Answers with no vowel at all are extremely rare.

Does letter position matter?

Yes. S starts many words but rarely ends them; E ends many words but rarely starts them. Knowing the position map — S and C first, A and O second, E last — makes your second guess smarter.

What are the rarest letters in Wordle?

Q, Z, X and J, each in under 1% of answers. No studied answer starts with X, and none ends in J, Q or V.

How do I use letter frequency in a game?

Build your opener from the top letters, use position knowledge for guess two, and don’t chase rare letters early. Our best starting words guide turns this into a concrete opener you can use every day.

Which letters should my starting word have?

E, A and R are the three to cover first, then O, T and L. A word like CRANE or SALET covers five of the top six in a single guess. If your opener has none of the top six letters, it is working too hard.