11 unusual 5-letter words to kick off your next Wordle game

If you’ve spent any time on social media over the last few weeks, you’ve probably noticed your feeds being slowly taken over by black, yellow and green squares. Wordle is the name of the game, and this simple daily word game has got everybody playing with language.

Given words are our forte, we’ve compiled a list of unusual five-letter words to fuel your next Wordle sprint. With the perfect blend of vowels and consonants you’d never expect, you might just crush it on the first try. We’d also added definitions, because at least if you don’t win, you learned a new word, right?

P.S. Don’t you worry, we’ve tested all of these options in the game, so you can rest assured they’re available in the Wordle dictionary. Good luck!

ADIEU

Adieu means the same as goodbye. It also has four vowels, what’s not to love?

TARES

Any of various vetch plants, such as Vicia hirsuta (hairy tare) of Eurasia and North Africa.

SOARE

A now obsolete noun meaning a young hawk, but one that does appear in the Wordle dictionary.

DUCAT

Any of various former European gold or silver coins, especially those used in Italy or the Netherlands.

OUIJA

a board on which are marked the letters of the alphabet; answers to questions are spelt out by a pointer or glass held by the fingertips of the participants, and are supposedly formed by spiritual forces.

CAROM

In snooker and billiards, a shot in which the cue ball is caused to contact one object ball after another.

ERGOT

A disease of cereals and other grasses caused by fungi.

CRAIC

If you are talking about something that you did and you say, ‘the craic was great’, or ‘it was a good craic’, you mean that you had a really good time, especially because everyone was talking, joking, and laughing.

SQUAB

A young unfledged bird, especially a pigeon.

ENOKI

An edible mushroom with a long, slender stem, a small, yellowish cap, and yellowish gills.

AZURE

Azure is used to describe things that are bright blue.

Got a favourite starter word? Share it, or just share your Wordle scores, with us over on Twitter at @CollinsDict.

You can also visit our Wordle Helper, a word-finding tool to help you narrow down your choices of five-letter words based on the results in your Wordle game.

By Rachel Quin
Rachel Quin is a freelance marketer and copywriter with a love of language, books and cats.

All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.