5-letter words with L as the 1st letter and I as the 3rd letter

The fixed pattern is L?I??, but the list is smaller than its familiar opening letters suggest: only two entries rank among the most common English words. LAIRD and LYING are the likeliest to recognize at a glance; several other options, such as LAICH and LAIGH, are less everyday. Their final letters offer a quick way to narrow the choices.

5-letter words with L first and I third at a glance

• There are 18 entries across the tournament dictionaries counted here.
• Only two are among the top 25,000 English words by frequency.
• Eight end in S, while four end in H.
• LAICH leads the base Scrabble scores at 10 points.
• One entry appears in the Wordle answer list; all 18 are allowed guesses.

Which L?I?? words fit Wordle?

One of these words is a Wordle answer, and the full set of 18 is accepted as allowed guesses. The answer count is a small slice of the available choices, so treat the pattern as a filter rather than a shortcut to a solution.

For a board clue, use the last letter next. S is the strongest ending clue here, with eight matches; H comes next with four. If neither fits your green or yellow tiles, the remaining words end in Y, A, D, E or G.

What are the scores and dictionary limits?

LAICH scores 10 points before board bonuses, ahead of LYING, LAIKA, LAIGH and LAIKS at 9 each. The set averages 7.2 points, so a rarer-looking word can still be a strong play when its letters land on premium squares.

The dictionary counts differ: all 18 appear in Collins, compared with 11 in NWL2023 and 9 in ENABLE. Twelve entries have definitions in the available lexicon. 5-letter words with L first and I third are therefore not interchangeable across every game; check your game's word list before playing an unfamiliar entry.