5-letter words with L as the 2nd letter and A as the 5th letter

The fixed final A turns this into a loanword shelf. LLAMA, ALPHA, PLAZA, ALOHA, ULEMA and ULAMA all arrived from other languages, and six of the eighteen open with A. Barely any sit in everyday English: just five are common enough to rank inside the top 25,000 words, yet five sit on Wordle's answer list, so PLAZA and FLORA pull double duty.

The L-second, A-fifth list at a glance

• Eighteen 5-letter words match the pattern, and all eighteen end in A.
• PLAZA scores 16, the highest in the group, with FLAVA next on 11.
• ALPHA, FLORA, PLAZA, ULTRA and PLAYA are the five common words.
• LLAMA, ALPHA, FLORA, PLAZA and ULTRA are the five Wordle answers.
• A opens six of them, P opens four, and U and F open three each.

Loanwords fill the A-ending shelf

Words that end in A are rare in English, and this list leans on borrowings. LLAMA and PLAYA come through Spanish, ALOHA is Hawaiian, and PLENA, ULEMA and ULAMA carry Arabic roots. GLEBA and ALULA belong to the botanical and anatomical shelves instead.

Only five rank inside the top 25,000 English words, so most of the eighteen live in tournament dictionaries rather than ordinary conversation. Sixteen carry a definition and seventeen sit in Collins, a high coverage rate for such an unusual shape.

Working the A ending in a game

Which word lists hold these eighteen

Collins lists seventeen of the eighteen, and FLAVA is the single word it leaves out, a North American spelling that shows up only in NWL2023. ENABLE is stricter still at fifteen, while NWL2023 carries sixteen of the set.

On a tournament board, the shorter lists can drop two or three of these words, and the differences land hardest on the rarer U and F openings.