Words with X and Z

What is in this list

This list holds 120 words, under 0.1% of the 172,634 words this site keeps from the ENABLE word list. They run from 3 to 17 letters, and the most common length is 10 letters with 20 words (16.7% of the list). The shortest is ZAX; the longest are CHLORDIAZEPOXIDES and RECONTEXTUALIZING. Of the 11 lists in this group it is the 9th largest: “words with Y” leads with 24,453 and “words with Q but no U” has the fewest, 21.

Points and vowels

Using this site's letter values, the average word here scores 28.8 points (median 29); words of the same lengths across the whole list average 18.9, so this list runs 9.9 points richer. The top scorers are OXYPHENBUTAZONES (41), OXYPHENBUTAZONE (40), CHLORDIAZEPOXIDES (39), CHLORDIAZEPOXIDE (38). Point for point, ZAX earns the most per letter: 17 points over 3 letters, 5.7 each. X and Z together are worth 16 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. 17 words are more than half vowels. Compared with the whole dictionary, the letter most over-represented here is I: 14.5% of the letters, against 9% overall.

How the words are built

In 114 of them X comes before Z; in the other 6, Z comes first. 8 words have a doubled letter (6.7%); the most common doubles are OO (6), LL (4). The most common three-letter openings are EXT- (22, as in EXTEMPORIZATION), MAX- (8, as in MAXIMIZATION), OXI- (7, as in OXIDIZABLE). The most common endings are -ING (19, as in AXIOMATIZING), -IZE (18, as in AXIOMATIZE), -ZED (18, as in AXIOMATIZED). 33.3% end in a single S — mostly plurals and verb forms of shorter words.

Word play in this list

The biggest anagram family here is DEOXIDIZER and REOXIDIZED — 2 words from the same 10 letters. Altogether 1 set of anagrams sits inside this list, covering 2 words. The longest word with no letter repeated is OXAZINES (8 different letters).

32.5% of these words take an S on the end and stay a word (AXIOMATIZATION, AXIOMATIZE and CHLORDIAZEPOXIDE among them); after S, the most useful end letter is D, which extends 18 words. None of them can take a single letter in front and still be a word.

Using this list

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