Words that start with X

What is in this list

This list holds 136 words, under 0.1% of the 172,634 words this site keeps from the ENABLE word list. They run from 2 to 17 letters, and the most common length is 8 letters with 20 words (14.7% of the list). The shortest are XI and XU; the longest is XERORADIOGRAPHIES. Of the 13 lists in this group it is the smallest; “words that start with S” is the largest with 18,959, 139 times as many.

Points and vowels

Using this site's letter values, the average word here scores 20.7 points (median 20); words of the same lengths across the whole list average 14.8, so this list runs 5.9 points richer. The top scorers are XENOPHOBICALLY (34), XEROGRAPHICALLY (34), XERORADIOGRAPHY (32), XYLOGRAPHICAL (32). Point for point, XYLYL earns the most per letter: 20 points over 5 letters, 4 each. X 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 34.2% of the letters, against 38% across the whole list. 1 word is more than half vowels: XENIA. 4 words have none of them at all, leaning on Y instead — for example XYLYL, XYLYLS, XYST and XYSTS. Compared with the whole dictionary, the letter most over-represented here is Y: 5.3% of the letters, against 1.6% overall.

How the words are built

After the opening X, the next letter is E in 47.1% of words, then Y (32.4%) and A (15.4%). 4 words have a doubled letter (2.9%); the most common doubles are LL (4). The most common endings are -IES (7, as in XENOGAMIES), -NES (6, as in XANTHENES), -HIC (4, as in XANTHIC). 42.6% end in a single S — mostly plurals and verb forms of shorter words.

Word play in this list

The biggest anagram family here is XANTHEINS and XANTHINES — 2 words from the same 9 letters. Altogether 2 sets of anagrams sit inside this list, covering 4 words. The longest word with no letter repeated is XYLOGRAPHIES (12 different letters). XANTHANS is the longest word here that uses only one kind of vowel, ahead of XYLIDINS.

29.4% of these words take an S on the end and stay a word (XANTHAN, XANTHATE and XANTHEIN among them); after S, the most useful end letter is E, which extends 2 words. At the front, A turns 2 words into new ones (XENIC → AXENIC).

Using this list

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