A pair of MIT researchers recently set out to find the optimal starting word for the popular online puzzle, discovering that the statistically superior first guess is SALET, which is a 15th century helmet.

The optimal first guess on Wordle is "ARISE"

Statistically, the best Wordle starting word is CANOE. But, if you want to try other 5 letter words that have similar statistical effectiveness, your choices are ROATE, CRANE, RAISE, and TRACE. Doesn’t hurt to give them all a shot at least once, right?

Based on our analysis, if you’re trying to win in as few guesses as possible, the top three words to go with are: SLICE TRIED CRANE Using any of these three words will produce an average number of word attempts of 3.90, 3.92, and 3.92, respectively, if you’re using an optimal strategy to play (more on that later).

One of them was programmer and game designer Tyler Glaiel, who assigned each letter in Wordle's 12,972 possible guesses a score of 0, 1 or 2, based on whether it is included in one of the 2,309 answers or not, and whether it is in the right place. After checking all 12,972 words, the algorithm determined that the best starting options are: SOARE