Reference

How Many Five-Letter Words Are There?

Five-letter words are the currency of Wordle and a staple of every word game. Here is how many exist, how many can actually be the Wordle answer, and the letters they lean on.

Updated July 2026

15,783
Valid five-letter words: 1,352
Possible Wordle answers: 15,783
Five-letter words with pages: E
Most common letter

Valid words vs possible answers

There are 15,783 five-letter words you can play as a guess, but only 1,352 of them are eligible to be the Wordle answer. That gap is deliberate: Wordle accepts a large dictionary so your guesses are rarely rejected, while keeping answers to a curated set of reasonably common words. It is why the strongest opening words, like SALET or LARES, can be excellent guesses without ever being the solution.

A few familiar five-letter words

Common five-letter words pack high-frequency letters into typical positions:

Which letters do five-letter words favour?

The most common letters in five-letter words are A, E, S, O, R, I, L, T. That ordering is the practical basis for a strong Wordle opener: load your first guess with these letters and you maximise the chance of a hit. See the full breakdown, including position-by-position patterns, on the letter-frequency page, or the strongest openers on the best starting words page.

Want the words themselves? Browse five-letter word lists by letter, or use the crossword solver to match a pattern and the anagram solver to unscramble a set of letters.

Frequently asked questions

How many five-letter words are there?

There are 15,783 five-letter words accepted as valid guesses in word games. The exact total depends on the dictionary used, different Scrabble and Wordle word lists vary at the edges, but this is the set used across our tools.

How many five-letter words can be a Wordle answer?

Only 1,352 of them. Wordle draws its daily answer from a smaller curated list of common words, while still accepting the full 15,783-word dictionary as guesses.

What letters are most common in five-letter words?

The most common letters are A, E, S, O, R, I. Building guesses from these high-frequency letters is the foundation of a good Wordle opener. See our letter-frequency analysis.

Where can I see a list of five-letter words?

Browse our five-letter word lists by starting or ending letter, or use the crossword and anagram solvers to find words matching a pattern or set of letters.

Are all five-letter words valid in Wordle?

Almost all common five-letter words are accepted as guesses, but very obscure or offensive words may be excluded, and only the curated subset can be the answer. Our solver uses the standard accepted guess list.