This list holds 2,420 words, 1.4% of the 172,634 words this site keeps from the ENABLE word list. Every word here has 5 letters, and they average 5 letters by construction — so the interesting differences are in which letters they use. Of the 36 lists in this group it is the 4th largest: “5 letter words with E” leads with 3,876 and “5 letter words ending in UMPY” has the fewest, 5. 9 words that would also fit were left out by this site's blocklist of slurs and explicit words.

Points and vowels

Using this site's letter values, the average word here scores 9.3 points (median 9); words of the same lengths across the whole list average 9.6, so this list runs 0.3 points leaner. The top scorers are FIZZY (25), HAJJI (25), WHIZZ (25), DIZZY (23). Point for point, FIZZY earns the most per letter: 25 points over 5 letters, 5 each. I itself is worth 1 point here, so the score comes from the other letters.

Vowels (A, E, I, O, U) make up 38.9% of the letters, against 38% across the whole list. 407 words are more than half vowels. Compared with the whole dictionary, the letter most over-represented here is K: 2% of the letters, against 0.8% overall.

Letter by letter

I opens 118 words (4.9%), closes 109 and sits inside the other 2,193. 117 words use it more than once, such as AALII, ACINI, AIOLI and ALIBI. Position by position, the most likely letters are S in slot 1 (11.3%), I in slot 2 (39.7%), I in slot 3 (30.6%), I in slot 4 (23.8%), S in slot 5 (26.6%). 1,776 words use 5 different letters with none repeated (73.4%); the rest repeat at least one, and the most common double is LL (51 words). The most common three-letter openings are CHI- (28, as in CHIAO), SPI- (25, as in SPICA), PRI- (24, as in PRICE). The most common endings are -ING (34, as in ACING), -INS (32, as in AMINS), -ILS (29, as in ANILS). 26.4% end in a single S — mostly plurals and verb forms of shorter words.

Word play in this list

The biggest anagram family here is PERIS, PIERS, PRIES, PRISE, RIPES, SPEIR, SPIER and 1 more — 8 words from the same 5 letters. Altogether 418 sets of anagrams sit inside this list, covering 1,055 words. It contains 3 palindromes, read the same both ways: CIVIC, KAIAK and MINIM. 42 words turn into another real word when spelled backwards — AIDER becomes REDIA, AIRTS becomes STRIA, ARRIS becomes SIRRA, DEMIT becomes TIMED. BIBBS is the longest word here that uses only one kind of vowel, ahead of BIDDY.

46.9% of these words take an S on the end and stay a word (AALII, ABIDE and ACTIN among them); after S, the most useful end letter is D, which extends 118 words. At the front, S turns 112 words into new ones (AILED → SAILED); A turns 49 words into new ones (BIDED → ABIDED); T turns 47 words into new ones (AILED → TAILED).

Using this list

If the answer to a five-letter puzzle is known to be in this list, TRIES is the guess that splits it most evenly: its colour patterns divide the sampled words into 95 groups, the largest of which has 117 words left (5.2 bits of information). To narrow it further, open it in the pattern finder: the rule “contains I, has 5 letters” is already filled in, and you can add a length, a fixed letter position or letters to leave out.

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About these lists. Words come from ENABLE, a public-domain word list; a few slurs and explicit words are left out. Letter values are this site's own rule, based on how rare each letter is. Scrabble, Words With Friends and Wordle are trademarks of their owners (Hasbro and Mattel, Zynga, The New York Times); this site is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them. Sources and limits.