Words that start with Y

What is in this list

This list holds 545 words, 0.3% of the 172,634 words this site keeps from the ENABLE word list. They run from 2 to 14 letters, and the most common length is 6 letters with 99 words (18.2% of the list). The shortest are YA, YE and YO; the longest is YOUTHFULNESSES. Of the 13 lists in this group it is the 11th largest: “words that start with S” leads with 18,959 and “words that start with X” has the fewest, 136. 2 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 13.4 points (median 13); words of the same lengths across the whole list average 11.7, so this list runs 1.7 points richer. The top scorers are YOUTHQUAKES (31), YOUTHQUAKE (30), YELLOWHAMMERS (28), YELLOWHAMMER (27). Point for point, YUK earns the most per letter: 11 points over 3 letters, 3.7 each. Y itself is worth 4 points here.

Vowels (A, E, I, O, U) make up 34.7% of the letters, against 38% across the whole list. 8 words are more than half vowels. Compared with the whole dictionary, the letter most over-represented here is K: 2.8% of the letters, against 0.8% overall.

How the words are built

After the opening Y, the next letter is A in 32.3% of words, then E (26.6%) and O (25.1%). 132 words have a doubled letter (24.2%); the most common doubles are LL (37), TT (16), MM (12). The most common endings are -ING (43, as in YABBERING), -ERS (28, as in YABBERS), -KED (10, as in YACKED). 36.3% end in a single S — mostly plurals and verb forms of shorter words.

Word play in this list

The biggest anagram family here is YEAREND and YEARNED — 2 words from the same 7 letters. Altogether 5 sets of anagrams sit inside this list, covering 10 words. It contains 1 palindrome, read the same both ways: YAY. 3 words turn into another real word when spelled backwards — YAPS becomes SPAY, YARD becomes DRAY, YAWS becomes SWAY. The longest word with no letter repeated is YACHTINGS (9 different letters). YACHTSMAN is the longest word here that uses only one kind of vowel, ahead of YARDLANDS.

33.8% of these words take an S on the end and stay a word (YABBER, YACHT and YACHTER among them); after S, the most useful end letter is N, which extends 9 words. At the front, A turns 5 words into new ones (YAH → AYAH); K turns 5 words into new ones (YACK → KYACK); P turns 5 words into new ones (YA → PYA).

Using this list

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