3 letter words with V

What is in this list

This list holds 34 words, under 0.1% 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 16 lists in this group it is the 13th largest: “6 letter words with A” leads with 6,569 and “4 letter words with Q” has the fewest, 16.

Points and vowels

Using this site's letter values, the average word here scores 8.4 points (median 8); words of the same lengths across the whole list average 6.6, so this list runs 1.8 points richer. The top scorers are VEX (14), VOX (14), VAV (11), VAW (11). Point for point, VEX earns the most per letter: 14 points over 3 letters, 4.7 each. V itself is worth 5 points here.

Vowels (A, E, I, O, U) make up 43.1% of the letters, against 38% across the whole list. 10 words are more than half vowels.

How the words are built

V opens 21 words (61.8%), closes 7 and sits inside the other 6. 1 word uses it more than once, such as VAV. 1 word has a doubled letter (2.9%); the most common doubles are EE (1).

Word play in this list

The biggest anagram family here is AVO and OVA — 2 words from the same 3 letters. Altogether 4 sets of anagrams sit inside this list, covering 8 words. It contains 3 palindromes, read the same both ways: AVA, EVE and VAV.

70.6% of these words take an S on the end and stay a word (AVE, AVO and DEV among them); after S, the most useful end letter is A, which extends 7 words. At the front, N turns 3 words into new ones (AVE → NAVE); F turns 2 words into new ones (AVA → FAVA); K turns 2 words into new ones (AVA → KAVA).

Using this list

The full list is short enough to read in one go: AVA, AVE, AVO, DEV, EVE, GUV, IVY, LAV, LEV, LUV, OVA, REV, TAV, VAC, VAN, VAR, VAS, VAT, VAU, VAV, VAW, VEE, VEG, VET, VEX, VIA, VIE, VIG, VIM, VIS, VOE, VOW, VOX and VUG. Ranked by points it runs from VEX (14) down to VOE (7), a spread of 7 points.