5-letter words ending in C

The -IC suffix dominates this group. It covers more than three in four of the 125 words and 27 of the 31 Wordle answers. Rare finishes such as HAVOC, FRANC and LILAC are the exceptions, which makes them useful to remember.

Words ending in C, summarised

• 125 words end in C. Collins accepts 124, NWL2023 accepts 101 and ENABLE accepts 97.
• 96 end in -IC; the next largest tail, -AC, has 11.
• 31 Wordle answers end in C, and every one of the 125 is an allowed guess.
• 25 are common, meaning they rank in the top 25,000 English words.
• ZYMIC leads the scoreboard at 21 points; the average is 9.4.

Why does -IC cover so much of the list?

96 of the 125 is 77 percent, or more than three in four. The adjective suffix explains it: MUSIC, BASIC, MAGIC, TOPIC, COMIC, LOGIC, PANIC and TOXIC are all common words. NIC leads the 3-letter tails with 16 words, followed by RIC with 14 and MIC with 13.

The rest are scattered: -AC has 11 words, -EC has 8, -OC has 6 and -NC has 4. HAVOC and FRANC are the everyday outliers.

Which Wordle answers end in C?

Thirty-one have been answers, and 27 of them end in -IC. The ten most frequent are MUSIC, BASIC, MAGIC, TOPIC, COMIC, LOGIC, PANIC, TOXIC, CIVIC and SONIC. Only HAVOC, LILAC, ILIAC and SUMAC break the -IC pattern.

That makes a green C in the last square a strong signal. Once you hold it, test the vowel in fourth place: I is far more likely than A, E or O, and among the answers the odds favour -IC by nearly seven to one.

How do the high-scoring C words play?

The odd spellings win the points. ZYMIC scores 21, ZEBEC 18, XYLIC 17 and XEBEC and AZOIC 16 each. Of these, XEBEC is the best known, a small sailing ship.

Among everyday words, TOXIC scores 14 and HAVOC scores 13. The C itself is worth 3, so a plain -IC word such as MUSIC lands around 9. Collins accepts 124 of the 125 and NWL2023 accepts 101, so oddities such as ZEBEC may fail in North American play; check your game's word list first.

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