Word of the Day · Tuesday, April 4, 2023
/iːst/noun
An often humid, yellowish froth produced by fermenting malt worts, and used to brew beer, leaven bread, and also used in certain medicines.
YEAST is a 5-letter word with 2 vowels (E, A) and 3 consonants (Y, S, T). Every letter is distinct, so it rarely punishes a clean opening guess.
It leans on high-frequency letters (E, A, S, T), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.
Across the 1,734 curated answers in the Wordocious bank, E appears in 50% of answers (the 1st most common letter), A appears in 40% of answers (the 2nd most common letter), T appears in 30% of answers (the 4th most common letter). No other answer in the bank opens with “YE-”, so locking those first two letters all but gives it away.
Difficulty: 2/5 — approachable, because its letters are common and no close neighbors compete with it.
One letter away in the answer bank: LEAST, FEAST, BEAST. Each of these turns four tiles green against YEAST — the classic endgame squeeze where spending a guess on the differing letter beats burning attempts on hope.
Words like YEAST are exactly what the daily puzzles throw at you. Warm up in Practice, race the clock in the Daily Challenge, or study the best starting words before your next run. New to the multi-board modes? The mode guides cover all nine.
Definitions adapted from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA). Letter statistics, difficulty ratings, and near-miss analysis are original Wordocious research computed from our curated answer list.