5-letter words with M as the 1st letter and T as the 3rd letter

The M?T?? frame gathers a tidy MAT-, MET- and MOT- family, so MATCH, METAL, METRE, MOTOR, MOTEL and MOTTO all fit. Nine matches are Wordle answers and every one is also a common word, an unusually clean overlap. The top scores, though, come from three Z spellings in the MATZO group.

M?T?? at a glance

• Fifty-nine matches carry M first and T third.
• O fills the second slot in 17, A in 13 and E in 12.
• Nine matches are Wordle answers, all common words.
• MATZO, MATZA and MOTZA tie at 16 points.
• Eighteen matches end in S, most of them plurals.

One frame, three vowel families

Almost every match opens MA-, ME- or MO-, and the vowel in slot two tells you which family you are in. O leads with 17 words and brings MOTOR, MOTEL, MOTIF and MOTTO; A follows with 13 through MATCH, MATHS and MATTE; E collects 12 more around METAL, METRE, METER and METED.

The fourth slot tightens things further. E appears 18 times, H nine times and T eight, so a grid that fixes an H after the T is really asking about MITCH, MATCH or MOTHS.

Where the nine Wordle answers sit

All nine Wordle answers, MATCH, MATEY, METAL, METER, METRO, MOTEL, MOTIF, MOTOR and MOTTO, also rank as common English. That flips the usual pattern, where obscure entries crowd the answer list. MATZO, MATZA and MOTZA score highest at 16, but none of them is a Wordle answer, so the solution list and the points list barely touch.

The Collins-only matches