This list holds 967 words, 0.6% of the 172,634 words this site keeps from the ENABLE word list. Every word here has 3 letters, and they average 3 letters by construction — so the interesting differences are in which letters they use. Of the 14 lists in this group it is the 13th largest: “8 letter words” leads with 28,394 and “2 letter words” has the fewest, 96. 5 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 6.6 points (median 6); words of the same lengths across the whole list average 6.6, so this list scores the same as the dictionary. The top scorers are ZAX (17), JAW (16), JEW (16), JOW (16). Point for point, ZAX earns the most per letter: 17 points over 3 letters, 5.7 each.

Vowels (A, E, I, O, U) make up 38.6% of the letters, against 38% across the whole list. 181 words are more than half vowels. 28 words have none of them at all, leaning on Y instead — for example BRR, BYS, CRY and CWM. Compared with the whole dictionary, the letter most over-represented here is W: 3% of the letters, against 0.7% overall.

How the words are built

Position by position, the most likely letters are A in slot 1 (7.3%), A in slot 2 (20.9%), E in slot 3 (8.7%). 866 words use 3 different letters with none repeated (89.6%); the rest repeat at least one, and the most common double is EE (16 words).

Word play in this list

The biggest anagram family here is ATE, EAT, ETA, TAE and TEA — 5 words from the same 3 letters. Altogether 219 sets of anagrams sit inside this list, covering 479 words. It contains 50 palindromes, read the same both ways: ABA, AGA, AHA, ALA, AMA and ANA.

77.5% of these words take an S on the end and stay a word (AAH, AAL and ABA among them); after S, the most useful end letter is E, which extends 221 words. At the front, S turns 177 words into new ones (ABS → SABS); B turns 94 words into new ones (AAL → BAAL); T turns 94 words into new ones (ABS → TABS).

Using this list

To narrow it further, open it in the pattern finder: the rule “has 3 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.