Six-letter words are English words spelled with exactly six letters, such as ACCEPT, GARDEN, PLANET and SCHOOL. WordleSolver's word bank holds 5,222 of them. Use the live filter above to narrow the list by start, middle or ending, or read on for the most common words, endings and patterns.
How Many 6 Letter Words Are There?
WordleSolver's word bank holds 5,222 six-letter words, all drawn from common English vocabulary. That is more than the 3,424 five-letter words in the same bank, because each extra letter opens room for suffixes such as -ED, -ER and -ING. The list in the filter above is the full set, ordered from the most familiar words to the least.
Why Do Six-Letter Word Counts Differ Between Sites?
Each site starts from a different dictionary. The NASPA Word List, the official reference for tournament Scrabble in North America, holds 16,706 six-letter words in its NWL2023 edition, effective February 29, 2024. Word-game sites that merge several game dictionaries go higher still: Word.tips reports 23,919 six-letter words. Those larger lists add plurals of rare nouns, archaic spellings and loanwords. A puzzle-focused bank keeps to words most readers will recognize, so it is about 31% the size of the NASPA list.
What Are the Most Common 6 Letter Words?
The most common six-letter words are everyday function and topic words, such as BEFORE, PEOPLE, NUMBER, DURING and AROUND. They appear in almost any book or news article, which is why they open the word bank's frequency-ordered list. The grid below collects 24 familiar six-letter words you can use as a quick reference.
Which 6 Letter Words Are Easiest to Learn First?
Words tied to daily life are the easiest to learn, because readers already know the thing they name. Family words include MOTHER, FATHER and SISTER. Nature and seasons give FLOWER, GARDEN, FOREST, ISLAND, SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN and WINTER. Animals give RABBIT, TURTLE and MONKEY, and colors give YELLOW, ORANGE and PURPLE. Food words such as BANANA, CHEESE, BUTTER and DINNER round out a starter set. Teachers often group six-letter spelling words this way because a shared theme makes them easier to remember.
6 Letter Words From A to Z
Six-letter words are spread unevenly across the alphabet. The table counts how many words in the bank start with each letter and shows the three most common examples, so you can see at a glance where the list is crowded and where it is thin.
| Starts with | Words | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| A | 247 | ACCEPT, ACCESS, ACCORD |
| B | 382 | BACKED, BASING, BECAME |
| C | 438 | CALLED, CANNOT, CAUGHT |
| D | 268 | DAMAGE, DANGER, DATING |
| E | 173 | EASIER, EASILY, EATING |
| F | 280 | FACTOR, FAILED, FAIRLY |
| G | 225 | GAINED, GARDEN, GATHER |
| H | 208 | HABITS, HANDED, HANDLE |
| I | 100 | IGNORE, IMAGES, IMPACT |
| J | 72 | JOINED, JACKET, JAMMED |
| K | 44 | KILLED, KINDLY, KNOCKS |
| L | 211 | LABELS, LACKED, LADIES |
| M | 255 | MAINLY, MAKING, MANAGE |
| N | 95 | NAMELY, NAMING, NATION |
| O | 83 | OBJECT, OBTAIN, OCCUPY |
| P | 372 | PACKET, PAPERS, PARENT |
| Q | 29 | QUOTED, QUOTES, QUEENS |
| R | 332 | RAISED, RAISES, RANDOM |
| S | 696 | SAFELY, SAFEST, SAFETY |
| T | 316 | TABLES, TAKING, TALKED |
| U | 88 | UNABLE, UNIQUE, UNLESS |
| V | 93 | VALUES, VARIED, VARIES |
| W | 184 | WAITED, WALKED, WANTED |
| X | 0 | None in the bank |
| Y | 19 | YELLOW, YEARLY, YIELDS |
| Z | 12 | ZANIER, ZANIES, ZEBRAS |
Which Letters Start the Most Six-Letter Words?
S starts 696 six-letter words (13.3%), more than any other letter. C follows with 438 words (8.4%), then B with 382 (7.3%) and P with 372 (7.1%). At the other end, Z starts only 12 words, Y starts 19 and Q starts 29, and no six-letter word in the bank starts with X. Only 13.2% of six-letter words begin with a vowel. The most common two-letter openings are RE (145 words), ST (120) and CO (104), so a known first letter of S narrows the list less than a first letter of Q or Y.
Which Endings Are Most Common in 6 Letter Words?
The -ED ending is the most common, closing 894 six-letter words, or 17.1% of the list. Next come -ER (435 words) and -ES (430 words). By final letter alone, S ends 27.4% of six-letter words, D ends 19.1% and E ends 10.7%.
How Do Suffixes Shape a Six-Letter Word?
Many six-letter words are four-letter roots with a two-letter suffix. CALLED, CAUSED and CLOSED are past-tense verbs, ANSWER, BETTER and CORNER end in -ER, and DEEPLY, EASILY and HARDLY end in -LY, which closes 107 six-letter words. The -ING ending is less common at this length, with 259 words (5.0%), because it leaves only a three-letter root, as in ACTING and ADDING. If you know a word ends in -ED, two of the six positions are fixed, and the remaining list drops from 5,222 words to 894.
How Often Do Six-Letter Words Repeat a Letter?
About half do. 2,548 six-letter words (48.8%) use six different letters, and 966 words (18.5%) contain a double letter side by side, as in ACCEPT, AFFAIR and LADDER. E is the letter you will meet most, appearing in 67.4% of six-letter words, followed by S (45.9%), R (41.0%) and A (39.9%).
6 Letter Words With Q, Z, X and J
Q, Z, X and J are the rarest letters in six-letter words, and they are the ones worth the most points. In WordleSolver's bank, Q appears in 60 six-letter words, Z in 87, J in 89 and X in 95. Compare that with E, which appears in 3,522 words.
- Q: QUOTED, SQUARE, UNIQUE, CLIQUE, EQUALS, LIQUID, LIQUOR.
- Z: DOZENS, AMAZED, BREEZE, FREEZE, FROZEN, HAZARD, PUZZLE.
- X: EXCEPT, EXCUSE, EXPAND, EXPECT, EXPERT, EXTEND, FIXING.
- J: ADJUST, JOINED, OBJECT, REJECT, INJECT, INJURY, JACKET.
What Are the Highest-Scoring 6 Letter Words?
JAZZED is the highest-scoring six-letter word in the bank at 32 points, using standard Scrabble tile values before any bonus squares. JAZZES scores 31, FRIZZY 30, and FIZZED and FUZZED 28 each. In a real game, a standard set has only one Z tile, so double-Z words like these need a blank tile for the second Z, which scores zero. PUZZLE and PIZZAS (26 points each) face the same limit.
Which 6 Letter Words Share the Same Letters?
478 groups of six-letter words in the bank are anagrams of each other, meaning they use exactly the same letters in a different order. The largest set has six members: PLATES, PALEST, PASTEL, PETALS, PLEATS and STAPLE, all from A, E, L, P, S and T.
| Letters | Six-letter anagrams in the bank |
|---|---|
| A E L P S T | PLATES, PALEST, PASTEL, PETALS, PLEATS, STAPLE |
| E I L N S T | LISTEN, SILENT, ENLIST, INLETS, TINSEL |
| A D E P R S | SPREAD, PARSED, DRAPES, RASPED, SPARED |
| A C E R S T | CATERS, REACTS, TRACES, CASTER, CRATES |
| A D E L S T | LASTED, DELTAS, SALTED, SLATED, STALED |
Which Six-Letter Words Have Unusual Shapes?
Only four six-letter words in the bank have no standard vowel: RHYTHM, CRYPTS, NYMPHS and PSYCHS, each relying on Y. At the other extreme, 34 words use four vowels, including EASIER, UNIQUE, AERIAL, BUREAU, IGUANA, NAUSEA and OPAQUE. The average six-letter word has 2.14 vowels, so a word with four is a strong clue that most of the remaining letters are A, E, I, O or U.
How Do You Use 6 Letter Words in Word Games?
In Wordle-style spin-offs, six-letter words work best when they test many common letters at once. RAISED, SATIRE and ARISEN are the highest-coverage starters in the bank, because each uses A, E, I, R and S with no repeated letter. The original New York Times Wordle uses five letters only, so six-letter play comes from variant games.
Which WordleSolver Tools Handle Six Letters?
For a six-letter Wordle variant, enter your colored rows in the 6-letter Wordle solver and it keeps only words that fit every green, yellow and gray tile. For a rack of loose letters, use the word finder and set the length to 6. To compare six-letter words with seven- and eight-letter words side by side, see the 6, 7 and 8 letter words overview, and for longer lists browse the 7 letter word finder or the 8 letter words list.
Sources and further reading
- NASPA Word List (Wikipedia) for the NWL2023 six-letter count.
- Word.tips 6 letter words for the merged game-dictionary total.
- Word finder to build six-letter words from your own letters.
- Editorial policy for how we check and update these guides.