5-letter words with H as the 2nd letter and Y as the 3rd letter

Fixing H second and Y third leaves the first, fourth, and fifth tiles open, and the result is a short, specialist set. RHYME, THYME, and SHYLY are the three Wordle answers, so a fifth of the list is playable. Scores run high because H and Y add four points each before any other tile counts.

Fifteen words, three answers

• 15 tournament-dictionary words match H in slot two and Y in slot three.
• Only one match ranks among the 25,000 most frequent English words.
• RHYME, THYME, and SHYLY are Wordle answers; all 15 are allowed guesses.
• The average score is 13.1 points.
• Collins lists 14 matches, NWL2023 lists 13, and ENABLE lists 12.

The YME pair drives the high scores

THYMY tops the list at 16 points, with CHYME and WHYDA close behind at 15. H and Y are worth 4 points apiece, so eight points arrive before the remaining tiles are counted. CHYLE and PHYLA give two more 13-point options that stay close to the leaders.

RHYME and THYME differ by a single opening letter and share the -YME ending. That near-twin pairing makes the cluster easy to test: name one, and the other stays in play when a clue points to this shape.

5-letter words with H as the 2nd letter and Y as the 3rd letter

Six of the 15 matches end in E, and three end in A. C, R, and T each open three words, so the first tile does little to narrow a guess; the fourth and fifth positions carry the information instead.

For 5-letter words with H as the 2nd letter and Y as the 3rd letter, coverage is uneven: ENABLE includes 12 matches, three fewer than Collins. The pattern also widens with word length, reaching 44 matches at six letters and 43 at seven.