12-letter words with F as the 2nd letter

F in second place at twelve letters always follows a vowel. A opens 32 of the 62 entries, E opens 21 and O opens 9, so AF-, EF- and OF- cover the whole list. In 53 of the words the F is doubled, which is why affectionate and effervescent both show the same shape.

The pattern behind second-letter F

• A opens 32 of the 62 words and E opens 21, so AF- and EF- are the only big families.
• 53 of the 62 entries double the F, turning the pattern into a vowel plus FF.
• 34 words end in S, 9 in G and 6 in Y.
• 4 count as common: affectionate, effortlessly, efficiencies and affiliations.
• The set averages 21.2 points.

The scoring lives in the middle

What the endings and the everyday words show

S closes 34 of the 62 entries, just over half, and G adds 9, mostly -ing forms such as effervescing and effectuating. Y takes 6 and T takes 5, so a final S is the first ending to test, and those -ing forms explain why G ranks so high for a single twelve-letter ending.

The four common words are the easy half of the list: affectionate, effortlessly, efficiencies and affiliations. Everything else, from efflorescent to affrightened, is rarer vocabulary, so a grid with F second usually needs a broad word list.

Second-letter F is thin at this length. The count peaks at ten letters with 138 words, falls to 98 at eleven and 62 here; only a few second letters, such as Z with 8 and J with 1, are rarer at twelve.