5 Letter Words

How to find 5 letter words

1. Contains: type letters that must be somewhere in the word, in any order. Type a letter twice (for example OO) to require it twice.
2. Starts with / Ends with: type the first or last letters, such as ST or ER.
3. Exact spots: put letters into the spot where they belong, like the third letter of a crossword answer.
4. Exclude: type letters the word must not have.
5. Read the list. Everyday words come first; rarer words that are still valid are tucked underneath.

5 letter words containing specific letters

The Contains box is the quickest way to answer questions like “what five-letter words have A and E?”. There are 1,746 accepted words with both letters, and 371 of them are everyday words, such as ABASE, ABATE, ABBEY, ABIDE, ABLED, ABODE. Add a starting or ending letter and the list shrinks to a handful.

For a single letter, the letter pages list every word with that letter and show where in the word it is most likely to be:

Words containing a letter

5 letter words by first and last letter

Among everyday five-letter words, the most common first letters are S (375), C (203), B (177), T (155), P (148). The most common last letters are E (433), Y (377), T (257), R (218), L (161).

Starting with

Ending in

How many 5 letter words are there?

Wordle accepts 12,972 five-letter words. Only about 2,385 of them are everyday words that can be chosen as answers; the others, like AAHED or XYSTI, are valid guesses that rarely come up in conversation. Most of them are also accepted in Scrabble and Words With Friends, though each game uses its own dictionary.

Most common letters in 5 letter words

The share of everyday five-letter words that contain each letter at least once:

5 letter words with no vowels

If you don’t count Y, 54 accepted words have no vowels, and 14 of them are everyday words. Y does the job of the vowel in all of them:

• CRYPT
• DRYLY
• GLYPH
• GYPSY
• LYMPH
• LYNCH
• MYRRH
• NYMPH
• PSYCH
• PYGMY
• SHYLY
• SLYLY
• TRYST
• WRYLY

Show every word without A, E, I, O or U

Common 5 letter word patterns

Many five-letter words share a beginning or an ending. Knowing the common ones helps you guess faster in word games and spot the answer when only a few letters are missing. Click an example above, or type the pattern into Starts with or Ends with.

Common endings

Common beginnings

Tips for finding the right word

• Crosswords: put every letter you already have into Exact spots. Even two letters usually cut thousands of words down to a short list.
• Scrabble and Words With Friends: use Contains for the tiles on your rack that must be used, and Exclude for letters you don’t have. The less common list below the results holds the rarer words that often score well.
• Wordle: the Wordle colors mode handles green, yellow and gray letters for you, including yellow letters that can’t be in a certain spot.
• Stuck on a vowel? Most five-letter words have two vowels. If you have three consonants and no vowels yet, try Contains with A, E or O first; they appear in the most words.

Playing Wordle?

Switch to Wordle colors at the top of the page to enter your green, yellow and gray letters. The solver keeps only words that fit every clue and ranks them by how much the next guess would tell you. Good first guesses include IRATE, ALERT, ALTER. Wordle has repeated 28 answers so far, so used answers are never ruled out.

Step-by-step Wordle helper Best starting words Past Wordle answers All five-letter words A–Z Words with double letters

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