5-letter words with O as the 2nd letter and T as the 3rd letter

The pattern _OT__ spans everyday words such as TOTAL, HOTEL, NOTES, and VOTED, alongside less familiar plays like MOTZA. Of the 101 matches, 21 rank among the most common English words. The range is broad: the list mixes familiar vocabulary, specialist entries, and words whose acceptance depends on your game’s dictionary.

At a glance: the O-T pattern

• 101 five-letter words match _OT__ across at least one tournament dictionary.
• MOTZA leads the scoring examples at 16 points; JOTTY follows at 15.
• 30 matches end in S, making that the most common final letter.
• M is the leading first letter, with 17 matches; R comes next with 12.

How many 5-letter words have O second and T third?

There are 101 such words. Their endings tell a useful story: S appears 30 times, while Y appears 12 times. Words such as NOTES, VOTES, MOTHS, and TOTES show why the plural ending is especially productive.

M starts 17 entries, including MOTOR, MOTEL, MOTIF, and MOTTO. R starts 12, while L and P each start 10. For a puzzle with the O-T pair fixed, testing M or R in the first position narrows the options faster than starting with a less common initial.

Changing only the second letter gives a useful benchmark: with A second and T third, the list has 136 matches; I second yields 106, while E second yields 85. O's 101 sits close to I's count, but the endings still skew heavily toward S. Treat the fixed pair as a filter, then use known first or last letters to cut candidates.

Which O-T words suit Wordle or a high-scoring play?

The pattern includes 12 Wordle answers and 100 allowed guesses. Familiar options such as TOTAL, HOTEL, and NOTED are easier to recognize, but the letter pattern alone does not tell you which answer is in play. Check your known letters against the full word rather than treating every match as an answer candidate.

For Scrabble, MOTZA tops the scoring examples at 16, with JOTTY at 15 and BOTOX at 14. These are less everyday choices than NOTES or VOTED, and dictionary coverage differs: Collins includes 97 matches, NWL2023 includes 76, and ENABLE includes 68. The 101-word total does not mean every game accepts every entry.