4 letter words with Z

What is in this list

This list holds 82 words, under 0.1% 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 16 lists in this group it is the 10th largest: “6 letter words with A” leads with 6,569 and “4 letter words with Q” has the fewest, 16. 1 word that would also fit was 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 13.6 points (median 13); words of the same lengths across the whole list average 8, so this list runs 5.6 points richer. The top scorers are JAZZ (27), BUZZ (22), FUZZ (22), FIZZ (21). Point for point, JAZZ earns the most per letter: 27 points over 4 letters, 6.8 each. Z itself is worth 8 points here, which is why so many of these words outscore their length.

Vowels (A, E, I, O, U) make up 38.4% of the letters, against 38% across the whole list. 3 words are more than half vowels: OOZE, OUZO and ZOEA.

How the words are built

Z opens 31 words (37.8%), closes 14 and sits inside the other 37. 5 words use it more than once, such as BUZZ, FIZZ, FUZZ and JAZZ. 14 words have a doubled letter (17.1%); the most common doubles are OO (5), ZZ (5), EE (3). The most common three-letter openings are ZIN- (3, as in ZINC), ZOO- (3, as in ZOOM), DOZ- (2, as in DOZE). The most common endings are -AZE (7, as in DAZE), -OZY (4, as in COZY), -AZY (3, as in HAZY). 12.2% end in a single S — mostly plurals and verb forms of shorter words.

Word play in this list

The biggest anagram family here is ADZE and DAZE — 2 words from the same 4 letters. Altogether 3 sets of anagrams sit inside this list, covering 6 words.

52.4% of these words take an S on the end and stay a word (ADZE, AZAN and AZON among them); after S, the most useful end letter is D, which extends 12 words. At the front, A turns 5 words into new ones (BUZZ → ABUZZ); B turns 4 words into new ones (LAZE → BLAZE); G turns 3 words into new ones (LAZE → GLAZE).

Using this list

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