5-letter words with L as the 3rd letter and D as the 4th letter

Locking L and D into positions three and four leaves a compact set, but its shape is lopsided: S-ending forms dominate, while only six entries count as common English. You’ll see familiar words such as holds and folds beside less everyday choices like veldt and tilde. The dictionary split matters if you play across word lists, so test S last before spending guesses on the opening letter.

At a glance: the LD pattern

• The fixed pattern is _ _ L D _; 31 tournament-dictionary words match it.
• S closes 19 matches, far ahead of Y at four; E and O each close three.
• S and W lead the first-letter count with five words apiece; G and M have four each.
• Just six matches are common by frequency, while two are Wordle answers.

How do you narrow 5-letter words with L 3rd and D 4th?

The recognizable S-ending set includes holds, folds, golds, molds, colds, wilds, welds, and milds. These make the pattern easier to scan, but the 19 S endings are not a promise that every match is a familiar plural.

Start with the fixed LD pair, then test the final letter. S is the strongest first try; if it fails, Y, E, and O together account for ten more matches. Words such as moldy, tilde, and waldo show why checking the last slot matters.

Two entries also appear among Wordle’s answers, but that overlap is much smaller than the 31-word allowed-guess set. Treat a tournament-valid guess as a clue candidate, not proof that it belongs to the answer list.

Which matches are common or score well?

Frequency is the main limitation: only six entries rank among common English words, so the full set includes specialized or uncommon forms. Veldt and tilde are less routine than holds or folds, and acceptance differs by game.

Moldy and baldy tie at 11 points, ahead of goldy at 10. Holds, folds, waldo, wilds, welds, wolds, and veldt each reach 9, so a familiar-looking answer isn’t automatically the scoring leader.

Collins has 31 matches, while NWL2023 has 23 and ENABLE has 22. That gap is a practical warning: confirm an uncommon form in your game’s lexicon before playing; the position pattern alone doesn’t guarantee cross-dictionary acceptance.