6 letter words with Q

What is in this list

This list holds 161 words, under 0.1% of the 172,634 words this site keeps from the ENABLE word list. Every word here has 6 letters, and they average 6 letters by construction — so the interesting differences are in which letters they use. Of the 16 lists in this group it is the 8th 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 18.1 points (median 18); words of the same lengths across the whole list average 11, so this list runs 7.1 points richer. The top scorers are EXEQUY (26), QUEAZY (26), QUEZAL (24), QUOKKA (24). Point for point, EXEQUY earns the most per letter: 26 points over 6 letters, 4.3 each. Q itself is worth 10 points here, which is why so many of these words outscore their length.

Vowels (A, E, I, O, U) make up 46% of the letters, against 38% across the whole list. 12 words are more than half vowels. Compared with the whole dictionary, the letter most over-represented here is U: 17.3% of the letters, against 3.3% overall.

How the words are built

Q opens 81 words (50.3%), closes 0 and sits inside the other 80. 14 words have a doubled letter (8.7%); the most common doubles are LL (4), EE (2), FF (2). The most common three-letter openings are QUA- (28, as in QUACKS), QUI- (24, as in QUICHE), SQU- (20, as in SQUABS). The most common endings are -QUE (25, as in BARQUE), -UES (7, as in FIQUES), -UET (4, as in COQUET). 30.4% end in a single S — mostly plurals and verb forms of shorter words.

Word play in this list

The biggest anagram family here is QUIRES, RISQUE and SQUIRE — 3 words from the same 6 letters. Altogether 15 sets of anagrams sit inside this list, covering 32 words. QANATS is the longest word here that uses only one kind of vowel, ahead of QURUSH.

49.7% of these words take an S on the end and stay a word (ACQUIT, BARQUE and BASQUE among them); after S, the most useful end letter is R, which extends 9 words. At the front, S turns 5 words into new ones (QUILLS → SQUILLS); A turns 2 words into new ones (QUIVER → AQUIVER); C turns one word into a new one (ROQUET → CROQUET).

Using this list

To narrow it further, open it in the pattern finder: the rule “contains Q, has 6 letters” is already filled in, and you can add a length, a fixed letter position or letters to leave out.