This list holds 3,881 words, 2.2% of the 172,634 words this site keeps from the ENABLE word list. Every word here has 4 letters, and they average 4 letters by construction — so the interesting differences are in which letters they use. Of the 14 lists in this group it is the 11th largest: “8 letter words” leads with 28,394 and “2 letter words” has the fewest, 96. 22 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 8 points (median 8); words of the same lengths across the whole list average 8, so this list scores the same as the dictionary. The top scorers are JAZZ (27), HAJJ (24), JUJU (24), BUZZ (22). Point for point, JAZZ earns the most per letter: 27 points over 4 letters, 6.8 each.

Vowels (A, E, I, O, U) make up 36.4% of the letters, against 38% across the whole list. 62 words are more than half vowels. 26 words have none of them at all, leaning on Y instead — for example BRRR, BYRL, CWMS and CYST. Compared with the whole dictionary, the letter most over-represented here is K: 2.7% of the letters, against 0.8% overall.

How the words are built

Position by position, the most likely letters are S in slot 1 (9%), A in slot 2 (19.1%), E in slot 3 (9.3%), S in slot 4 (20.8%). 3,091 words use 4 different letters with none repeated (79.6%); the rest repeat at least one, and the most common double is EE (106 words). The most common three-letter openings are CAR- (10, as in CARB), FLA- (10, as in FLAB), TOR- (10, as in TORA). The most common endings are -ILL (17, as in BILL), -ATS (16, as in BATS), -AYS (16, as in BAYS). 20% end in a single S — mostly plurals and verb forms of shorter words.

Word play in this list

The biggest anagram family here is ATES, EAST, EATS, ETAS, SATE, SEAT, SETA and 1 more — 8 words from the same 4 letters. Altogether 813 sets of anagrams sit inside this list, covering 2,034 words. It contains 13 palindromes, read the same both ways: ABBA, ANNA, BOOB, DEED, KEEK and KOOK. 300 words turn into another real word when spelled backwards — ABUT becomes TUBA, ADOS becomes SODA, AGAR becomes RAGA, AGAS becomes SAGA.

63% of these words take an S on the end and stay a word (ABBA, ABBE and ABET among them); after S, the most useful end letter is Y, which extends 455 words. At the front, S turns 411 words into new ones (ABED → SABED); C turns 196 words into new ones (ABLE → CABLE); B turns 157 words into new ones (AALS → BAALS).

Using this list

To narrow it further, open it in the pattern finder: the rule “has 4 letters” is already filled in, and you can add a length, a fixed letter position or letters to leave out.

More lists like this

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.