Vowl · Strategy
Letter frequency by position
Where each letter actually sits, slot by slot, across every word Vowl can hand you. Overall letter frequency is close to useless for guessing. Position is where the information is.
Why overall frequency misleads you
The standard letter frequency table says E is the most common letter in English and so it is, at 10.3 percent of all letters in the five letter list. But S is 10.5 percent, slightly ahead, and the two are nothing alike in practice. E is spread across every slot with a spike at slot four. S is concentrated: 31 percent of all words end in one, and 12 percent start with one, and it is comparatively rare in the middle.
Guessing a letter is not what you are doing. You are guessing a letter in a slot, and the two distributions barely resemble each other.
Five letters
8,636 words. Top six letters in each slot.
| Slot | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | s 12.2% | c 7.7% | b 6.8% | p 6.5% | t 6.3% | a 5.8% |
| 2 | a 17.1% | o 15.5% | e 12.3% | i 11.2% | u 9.2% | r 7.5% |
| 3 | a 9.8% | r 9.2% | i 8.6% | o 7.8% | n 7.3% | l 6.8% |
| 4 | e 19.7% | a 7.6% | t 7.2% | i 6.7% | l 6.2% | n 6.1% |
| 5 | s 31.2% | e 10.8% | y 10.5% | d 6.7% | r 6.1% | t 5.6% |
The story here is slots two, four and five. Slot two is a vowel 65 percent of the time. Slot four is E almost 20 percent of the time. Slot five is S 31 percent of the time. Slots one and three are the flat ones, which is another way of saying they are the slots where a guess tells you the most, because you have the least prior information about them.
Four letters
3,903 words.
| Slot | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | s 9% | p 6.6% | b 6.4% | t 6.4% | d 6% | c 5.9% |
| 2 | a 19% | o 18% | e 13.3% | i 13% | u 10.3% | r 4.9% |
| 3 | e 9.3% | r 8.7% | a 8.6% | n 8.2% | l 7.4% | i 6.4% |
| 4 | s 20.9% | e 13.3% | t 8.3% | d 5.4% | a 5.1% | k 5% |
Slot two is even more vowel heavy than at five letters, 73 percent across A, O, E, I and U. Slot four is S at 20.9 percent, well down from the five letter figure. Four letter words are flatter overall, which is why openers matter less.
Six letters
15,232 words.
| Slot | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | s 11.8% | c 8.5% | b 7% | p 6.8% | r 6.1% | t 5.9% |
| 2 | a 17.6% | e 14.2% | o 14% | i 10.6% | u 9.1% | r 7.2% |
| 3 | r 9.6% | a 8.4% | n 7.7% | i 7% | o 6.7% | l 6.6% |
| 4 | i 11.7% | e 9.3% | t 7.5% | a 7.2% | o 6.4% | l 6.2% |
| 5 | e 30.8% | n 7.7% | a 7.6% | l 7.4% | i 7% | r 6% |
| 6 | s 28.1% | d 11.9% | e 11.4% | r 10.1% | y 7.7% | t 5.5% |
Slot five is E at 30.8 percent, the single most concentrated slot in any of the three lists. That is the -ERS, -EST, -IES and -LED endings all stacking in one place. Pair it with slot six being S at 28.1 percent and the last two letters of a six letter word are far more predictable than the first two.
Vowel counts
How many vowels a word contains, counting A, E, I, O and U, and not counting Y.
| Vowels | 4 letters | 5 letters | 6 letters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 27 | 36 | 21 |
| 1 | 2,144 | 2,692 | 1,460 |
| 2 | 1,670 | 5,089 | 9,181 |
| 3 | 62 | 798 | 4,300 |
| 4 | 0 | 21 | 270 |
Two vowels is the mode at every length. Zero vowel words exist but there are 27 of them at four letters, 36 at five and 21 at six, so if you are down to three candidates and one of them is CRWTH, it is probably not CRWTH.
Repeated letters
5,665 of the 8,636 five letter words have five different letters, so about a third repeat something. 1,145 of them have the repeat as a double, two of the same letter side by side. At six letters the repeat rate is higher still: 7,260 of 15,232 are all distinct.
The practical version: guessing a word with a repeated letter early is usually wasteful, because you are spending two of your slots to test one letter. Save it for when a yellow has already told you a letter is in there and you cannot place it.