4-letter words with P as the 2nd letter

The second-letter P pattern has a clear favorite: 31 words begin with S, including SPIN, SPAN and SPIT. A further 11 start with A, such as APES and APEX. Only 18 entries rank among common English words, so this group mixes everyday plays with less familiar tournament vocabulary; use the fixed P to narrow your rack, then check the first and last letters.

At a glance: the P pattern

• There are 63 four-letter matches with P in position two.
• S leads as the first letter with 31 words; A follows with 11.
• OPEN, UPON, SPOT and SPIN are among the recognizable options.
• APEX scores 13 points, while the top scorer, MPOX, scores 15.
• The 63-word total spans Collins, NWL2023 and ENABLE entries.

How many 4-letter words with P as the 2nd letter?

There are 63 words matching the pattern across the tournament dictionaries. The dictionary totals are 61 in Collins, 46 in NWL2023 and 42 in ENABLE; those counts overlap because many words appear in more than one list. Each dictionary accepts a different subset, so a word counted in one may not be playable in another.

The S-starting cluster supplies nearly half the choices: 31 of 63 begin SP. That makes SPOT, SPIN, SPAN, SPIT and SPUN useful candidates when your first letter is still open.

The remaining matches start with A, O, U, E or M. OPEN and UPON show that P need not sit beside S.

How to use 4-letter words with P as the 2nd letter

Start with the first-letter split, then test the ending. The most frequent final letter is S, with 11 matches; D appears 6 times, while E, N and Y each appear 5 times.

If your rack points to a plural, APES, APPS and SPAS are among the examples. For a different finish, try OPAL, OPUS, SPUD or SPUR.

For a scoring play, MPOX leads at 15 points and APEX follows at 13. Those are less everyday choices than OPEN or SPOT, so keep the board position and your game's dictionary in view. A high tile score is not a guarantee that a word fits a particular word list.