5-letter words with P as the 1st letter and E as the 3rd letter

The shape is P E: P fills the first slot, E the third, and the rest is open. The opening pair does most of the work, with 17 matches beginning PR and ten beginning PE. Nine entries count as common words, and seven are Wordle answers.

The P-E pattern in numbers

• P first with E third covers 58 five-letter matches.
• Seventeen matches open with PR and ten with PE.
• Twenty-one end in S and nine in E, the two busiest endings.
• Seven are Wordle answers and nine count as common words.
• Prexy leads at 17 points on a Y and an X; piezo follows at 16.

Which openings lead this pattern?

Seventeen matches begin PR, and they carry most of the familiar names: press, preys, preps, preen, prexy and predy. Ten more open with PE, including peeks, peels, peeps, peers, peeve and peery, while PL adds nine such as plead, pleas and pleat.

The endings are just as lopsided. S closes 21 matches, E nine and Y seven, so those three letters account for 37 of the 58 entries. Fix the final tile before you test fresh middles.

5-letter words with P as the 1st letter and E as the 3rd letter

Prexy tops the list at 17 points, piezo reaches 16 and premy follows at 12. Everything else sits at 11 or lower, so a Y, X or Z lifts a match far more than a familiar shape does.

That is the catch with this pattern, because only nine matches are common words. Plurals make up a large slice, since peers, poems, poets, peeps, peels and plebs all close on S. The list reads as everyday at a glance and thins out on close inspection, so keep the seven Wordle answers in front of you and treat the rest as filler.