5-letter words with I as the 3rd letter and N as the 4th letter

The pattern is __IN_, a common middle that shows up in three familiar families. Words ending in G number 47, ending in S 40 and ending in E 30, so THING, BRING, SWING, COINS, GAINS, TWINS, SHINE, SPINE and WHINE account for most of the list. S opens 25 words, T opens 18 and A opens 17, and 58 of the 180 are Wordle answers.

__IN_ words in five facts

• 180 five-letter words put I third and N fourth.
• 47 end in G, 40 in S and 30 in E.
• S starts 25, T starts 18 and A starts 17.
• Fifty-eight are Wordle answers; all but one are accepted guesses.
• Nothing here scores above 14 points.

The three families inside __IN_

The -ING group is the biggest at 47 words, and it doubles as a verb list: BEING, THING, USING, BRING, SWING, STING, CLING, FLING and OWING all land here. Plurals ending in S add 40 more, among them COINS, GAINS, TWINS, JOINS, PAINS, RAINS, VEINS and SPINS.

Endings in E supply 30 words, from SHINE, SPINE and WHINE to BRINE, TWINE and QUINE. THINK, DRINK and POINT sit in a smaller set that ends in a consonant.

Those three endings account for 117 of the 180 words, which means a green final tile narrows the list quickly. The rest trail off: 21 words end in T, 16 in K and 9 in Y.

Why does nothing here score above 14?

Fourteen points is the ceiling, shared by WHINY, QUINT, QUINE, QUINA, QUINO, QUINS, ZEINS and AZINE. Five of those eight lean on a Q, and only DJINN and AXING reach 13 beneath them.

Collins carries 177 of the 180 entries and NWL2023 carries 146, so a handful of rare forms disappear in North American games. Verify the dictionary your game uses before playing an entry you do not recognise.