5-letter words with D as the 3rd letter and E as the 4th letter

The pattern is _ _ D E _, and it produces a mix of familiar words such as UNDER, ORDER, VIDEO, and MODEL. The final letter narrows the choices quickly: S, R, and D account for most of the matches. For a game clue, lock in those last-letter groups first, then weigh each candidate against your dictionary.

At a glance: the D-E pattern

• There are 119 tournament-dictionary matches for the pattern _ _ D E _.
• UNDER, ORDER, and VIDEO are familiar examples; CODED and INDEX offer different endings.
• C is the most common first letter, beginning 16 words in this group.
• S leads the final-letter counts with 39 words, ahead of R with 28 and D with 22.
• The matches average 8.1 points in Scrabble before board bonuses.

Which endings narrow the pattern fastest?

Start with the last tile. Words ending in S form the largest group, including SIDES, MODES, and NODES; R is next, with UNDER, WIDER, and RIDER among the examples. D is another strong branch, with ADDED, ENDED, and FADED.

Those three endings cover 89 of the 119 matches, or about three quarters. That makes a known final letter especially valuable: if the answer ends in L, N, X, E, or T, the candidate pool is much smaller. The leading starts are less concentrated; C has 16, while B has 11.

How to use 5-letter words with D as 3rd and E as 4th

For Wordle, all 119 matches are allowed guesses, but 20 also appear in the answer list and tournament dictionaries. Test the open letters with familiar candidates such as UNDER, ORDER, and VIDEO; their different first and last letters probe several positions without changing the fixed D-E pair.

Dictionary coverage is not identical across games: the set includes 93 ENABLE words, 118 Collins words, and 96 NWL2023 words. CODEX scores 15 points and FEDEX scores 16 before board bonuses, but the highest scorer is not automatically a strong clue-solving guess. Check your game's word list before relying on an unfamiliar entry.