4-letter words with H as the 2nd letter

Only 160 tournament-dictionary words fit this pattern, compared with 1,057 four-letter words that have A in position two. Fifty-seven H-second words rank among the most common English words, and 133 have definitions. C leads the starting letters with 38 entries, just ahead of S with 34, and the familiar TH, SH, WH and CH groups make this pattern easier to scan than the count suggests.

Quick facts about the H-second pattern

• The list contains 160 words accepted by at least one tournament dictionary.
• Collins includes 156 matches, NWL2023 includes 130, and ENABLE includes 119; those sets overlap.
• C starts 38 words, S starts 34, W starts 25, and T starts 22.
• Final T is most common, appearing in 21 matches; final S follows with 17.
• WHIZ scores 19 points, the highest score among these four-letter entries.

Which letters lead 4-letter words with H second?

C, S, W and T account for the leading starts: 38 words begin CH, 34 begin SH, 25 begin WH, and 22 begin TH. Familiar choices include CHAT, SHIP, WHAT and THEY. Those four groups cover most of the pattern’s obvious everyday examples, but the remaining words add less familiar options.

T is the most frequent final letter, with 21 matches; THAT, WHAT and SHUT show the pattern, and S comes next at 17, as in THIS and THUS. Final N appears in 14 words, including WHEN and THEN, while W closes 12, including SHOW. Checking the last letter can narrow a known H-second clue quickly.

Which H-second words score highest?

WHIZ tops the scoring list at 19 points. CHEZ, CHIZ and PHIZ each score 18, so a Z can turn this constrained pattern into a strong Scrabble play. Those high scorers are much less familiar than THAT or THIS, making a quick game-dictionary check a sensible move before you commit a rack.

For 4-letter words with H as the second letter, the main limitation is dictionary coverage: the three tournament lists do not accept identical sets. Collins has 156 matches, against 130 in NWL2023 and 119 in ENABLE, even though the combined list has 160. A word’s presence in one list does not guarantee acceptance in another.