The Hardest 5-Letter Words to Guess (Ranked from 884 Answers)
2026-09-24 · Tile Guess
203 of the 884 five-letter answers end in E. That is 23%.
One square carries that much of the distribution, and most people fill the board left to right.
This counts all 884 five-letter answers in the WordMaster pool, 4,420 letters, position by position. There is a companion piece on the six-letter pool, and the results are not the same.
The last letter is where the mass is
The distribution of the final square:
| Last letter | Answers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| E | 203 | 23% |
| T | 116 | 13% |
| R | 83 | 9% |
| Y | 74 | 8% |
| D | 68 | 8% |
| H | 59 | 7% |
| N | 54 | 6% |
| L | 50 | 6% |
E, T, R and Y take 54% of the last square between them. The other 21 letters split what is left.
So when you stall around guess three, work the final square before the middle ones. The odds there are bent more than twice as far.
Every position has a different winner
| Position | 1st | 2nd | 3rd |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | S 135 (15%) | C 83 | A 64 |
| Second | R 124 (14%) | O 106 | A 95 |
| Third | A 145 (16%) | I 111 | O 105 |
| Fourth | E 122 (14%) | A 74 | N 72 |
| Fifth | E 203 (23%) | T 116 | R 83 |
E is in 462 of the 884 answers, more than half. But where it sits is heavily skewed: close to half of those are in the final square, against only 47 in the first.
So an amber E is worth testing in position four or five before you grind through the left-hand squares.
The six-letter rule inverts here
The most useful number in the six-letter piece was that 48% of answers repeat a letter β stop hunting for new letters, in other words.
At five letters it is 26%. 230 of 884. Close to half as often.
Which follows from having one square fewer to spend, but it flips the advice. At five letters, keep testing new letters. Suspecting a repeat when you have four placed and nothing fits is six-letter reasoning.
Two modes of the same game, two different optimal strategies.
Only two answers have no vowel
GLYPH and NYMPH. That is comparable to the three at six letters, but out of a pool three times the size, so far rarer.
The real trap is the next tier: 313 answers β 35% β have exactly one vowel. Opening with two or three vowels comes back thin one time in three.
Y is the problem letter again
| Letter | Answers containing it |
|---|---|
| Y | 94 |
| K | 69 |
| W | 65 |
| V | 57 |
| X | 16 |
| Z | 14 |
| Q | 14 |
| J | 12 |
Y sits in 94 answers, more than X, Z, Q and J together at 56. The six-letter pool said the same thing.
And Y is fourth-commonest in the final square, at 74. When the ending will not come, it is the letter to try after E, T and R.
The 15 hardest
| # | Word | Why it is hard |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | KAYAK | K twice, A twice. Five squares, three distinct letters. |
| 2 | VIVID | V twice, I twice. V is in only 57 answers. |
| 3 | POPPY | P twice plus Y, and O is the only vowel. |
| 4 | KNOWN | N twice, with both K and W. |
| 5 | WORRY | R twice, W and Y, one vowel. |
| 6 | QUEUE | E three times, U twice. Three distinct letters. |
| 7 | JEWEL | E twice with J and W. J is in 12 answers. |
| 8 | FUNNY | N twice, ends in Y, U the only vowel. |
| 9 | ALLAY | A twice, L twice, ends in Y. |
| 10 | EVOKE | E twice with K and V. Ordinary word, rare shape. |
| 11 | FULLY | L twice, ends in Y, U the only vowel. |
| 12 | QUICK | No repeats, but Q and K, and QU eats two squares. |
| 13 | JUICY | J and Y, two of the rarest letters in the pool. |
| 14 | WHICH | H twice plus W. A very common word your guesses miss. |
| 15 | LUCKY | K and Y, with U the only vowel. |
Read down that list and the nature of the difficulty shows: not one of them is an obscure word. KAYAK, FUNNY, WHICH β everyone knows them. What is hard is the shape.
What to open with
Letter frequency across all 884 answers runs E (529), A (400), R (377), T (311), O (281), I (269), L (257), S (248), N (212), C (192).
The answers that cover five of those top ten with no repeated letter:
TRIAL Β· TRAIN Β· TRAIL Β· TEARS Β· STORE Β· STONE Β· STERN Β· STEAL Β· STALE
All of them are in the answer list, so a good opener can also just win.
STORE and STONE do something extra: they test S in first position (15%) and E in last (23%) at the same time, so they buy the positional odds as well as the letters. There are twenty more in the starting-words piece.
Putting it together
- E, T, R and Y hold 54% of the last square. When you stall, work the ending
- An amber E belongs in position four or five first
- Only 26% repeat a letter β unlike six letters, keep testing new ones
- 35% have a single vowel, so a vowel-heavy opener comes back thin one time in three
- Open with
STOREorTRAIL
Then go and lose to QUEUE. Three distinct letters in five squares.