5-letter words with O as the 3rd letter and T as the 4th letter

The shape is _ O T _: fix O in the third slot and T in the fourth, then test the three open positions. Twenty matches rank among the most common English words, so PHOTO, WROTE, TOOTH and QUOTE share the list with rarer forms. Fifteen are Wordle answers, which makes the pattern a useful filter rather than a giveaway.

The O-T pattern at a glance

• Five words tie for the top score of 17: quoth, zloty, azoth, wootz and zooty.
• Twenty-eight matches end in S and 11 in H, the two busiest closing letters.
• Fifteen of the 68 are Wordle answers and 20 count as common words.
• The full -OTH tail sits here: booth, broth, cloth, froth, sloth, tooth and wroth.
• Collins holds all 68, NWL2023 keeps 59 and ENABLE 57.

Where the 17-point ceiling comes from

Five matches tie at the top on 17: quoth, zloty, azoth, wootz and zooty. Each carries a Q or a Z, and those two premium tiles are the only route to a big score in a set this short. Quote, quota, azote and zlote follow at 14.

Below that the field flattens out. Plotz reaches 16 on its Z, yet the average across all 68 matches is 8.9, so everyday picks such as photo, wrote and tooth land near that mark rather than above it. Treat this as a placement pattern, not a points pattern.

5-letter words with O as the 3rd letter and T as the 4th letter

Fifteen matches are Wordle answers: booth, booty, broth, cloth, froth, photo, quota, quote, quoth, sloth, smote, sooth, sooty, tooth and wrote. Ten of the 15 finish on H or Y, so naming the last letter in your grid removes most of the field at once.

The other five answers close on O, A or E, which keeps the pattern readable but never solvable by position alone. Lock the O and T, then work the final tile before you test the middle pair.