5-letter words with H as the 1st letter and O as the 2nd letter

The HO opening narrows the search to 136 five-letter entries, but only 28 fall within the top 25,000 English words by frequency. HOUSE, HOTEL, HORSE, and HONEY are familiar examples; the highest scorer, HOWFF, is much less everyday. Seventeen entries also appear in the Wordle answer list, and all 17 occur in a tournament dictionary.

What stands out among HO words

• 136 words match the pattern, and 110 have definitions.
• Collins includes 132, NWL2023 includes 102, and ENABLE includes 93; the dictionary counts overlap.
• The most frequent final letter is S, appearing in 46 words; Y follows with 21.
• HOWFF leads the scoring list at 17 points, ahead of HODJA, HOKKU, and HOXED at 16.

Which 5-letter words have H first and O second?

For a familiar starting point, try HOUSE, HOURS, HOTEL, HORSE, or HOMES. HONOR, HONEY, HOLLY, and HOUND also fit the HO pattern, while HOPED and HOPES differ only in their final letter.

The endings are uneven: 46 entries finish with S, more than twice the 21 ending in Y. D and E are next, with 15 and 12 words respectively. That makes the final letter a strong filter when your first two tiles are already fixed.

This pattern has fewer matches than CO___, which has 220, but nearly the same number as LO___ at 137. For another vowel after H, the H-A pattern has 138 entries, just two more than H-O.

How should you use the rarer matches?

HOWFF is the top scorer at 17 points; HODJA, HOKKU, and HOXED each score 16. HOBBY, HOWDY, HOPPY, HOKEY, HOOKY, and HOWKS score 15 apiece, giving you several alternatives if the highest-scoring play will not fit your rack or board.

A high score does not mean a word is familiar: only 28 of the 136 entries meet the frequency threshold. The count also combines several tournament dictionaries, so it does not guarantee that every game accepts every word.