Are you in a Wordle rut? 

Are you sick and tired of opening your Wordle session with the same, overused word? Has it gotten too easy? Is it time to shake things up? If your answer to any of these questions is “Yes!”, then this is the article for you.

Maybe you selected your go-to Wordle-opener after careful study and thought. You picked a word that’s well recommended. You liked its vowel count and the ubiquity of its consonants across the pool of likely solution words. But now… you’re bored. 

Enter the Wordle-Turkey: 6 Worst Wordle Starting Words

A Wordle-turkey is a spectacularly bad starting word. It’s obscure, inefficient, and almost guaranteed to give you five grays. But if you’re the kind of player who thrives on challenge, that’s exactly where the fun begins. Embrace the challenge of opening with a likely loser and pull a solid victory out of the fire!

Here are the 6 worst Wordle openers 

Here are the top Wordle-turkeys as determined by our bot*. And yes, the Wordle app will accept all of them for Wordle play, and for the most part, they’re all absolutely disastrous as Wordle openers.

• YUKKY (alternate spelling for “YUCKY”), possessing the ick factor
• ZHUZH the act of making a slight addition to bring about some extra oomph
• FUFFY soft, light, puffy
• XVIII eighteen (Not sure why Wordle accepts this one, but ours is not to reason why)
• XYLYL a type of chemical compound
• QAJAQ a type of kayak or canoe

Maybe you’ll get lucky!

Say you open with QAJAQ. Against all odds, “Q” turns yellow and the second “A” turns green. You’ve already narrowed the answer down to just four words: SQUAT, EQUAL, SQUAD, and SQUAB. Victory is within reach!

When that happens, enjoy the glory. Share your grid. Pat yourself on the back for surviving chaos with style. And don’t forget to let your friends know about your absolutely horrendous starting word.

What if you’re not so lucky?

Chances are, your turkey will lay an egg—five gray tiles and no hope in sight. If nothing lights up, don’t panic. You’re not doomed—you just need the right recovery word. That’s when you drop in the perfect second word. 

Here’s our list of Wordle-turkeys with their best second-word pairings. The bot’s overall favorite second-word shows up first, but they tend not to be that common. If you prefer a more common second-word, the bot’s favorite but more common second-words show up next, and while not quite as efficient, they still work very well.

• YUKKY Best second word is TIARE, but SLATE, PARSE and CRATE also work well.
• ZHUZH Best second word is TIARE, but SLATE, PARSE and LEAST also work well.
• FUFFY Best second word is TARSE, but SLATE, CRATE and TRACE also work well.
• XVIII Best second word is TARSE, but SLATE, CRATE and TRACE also work well. 
• XYLYL Best second word is TARSE, but CRATE, TRACE and REACT also work well.
• QAJAQ Best second word is REIST, but HORSE, CRIED and SIREN also work well.

Our bot-tested second-word pairings are designed to help you recover from even the worst openers. Like a rich dish with the perfect wine, they pair perfectly with their respective Wordle-Turkeys.  These second plays will help clear the board and put you back in control.

Get the pairing right and even a horrendous Wordle-opener can end up working out okay.

The Strategy In a Nutshell: (Here’s how to play it smart)

1. Start with a turkey – one of our bot-tested loser openers.
2. If you get a lucky hit – great! Use the clue and solve it fast.
3. If you get five grays – recover with the perfect second word

Pro Tip from the Bot

All our recommended second words also make excellent starting words.

• TARSE is our bot’s favorite opener overall—high efficiency, with a mix of vowels and consonants that are well represented throughout the list of possible solutions.
• Looking for something more familiar? Words like SLATE, TRACE, and PARSE perform nearly as well as TARSE. 
• While HORSE, CRIED, and SIREN do not perform quite as well as the others, they still work well enough as openers to merit an Honorable Mention. 

Bragging Rights Included

Anyone can win with TARSE, SLATE or TRACE. It takes a bold Wordler to win with XYLYL.

So go ahead—play a turkey. Survive it. Share your grid. And let the world know you don’t just solve Wordle. You conquer it.

Good luck and happy Wordling!