5-letter words with V as the 3rd letter and E as the 4th letter

??VE? is the biggest V pattern in five letters, with 139 matches. It is also a verb machine: the frame captures MOVED, LOVES, GIVEN and SAVED, all built from a silent-e stem. Thirty-one matches sit on the Wordle answer list and 42 rank among the everyday words.

??VE? at a glance

• 139 matches, the largest five-letter V pattern.
• 131 keep a vowel in the second square.
• Thirty of them carry the -OVE- spine.
• R and S each close 33 words, D 22 and N 18.
• JIVEY tops the scores at 18; six J words reach 15.
• Forty-two matches are everyday words and 31 are Wordle answers.

Why the J words own the top of the table

Six matches open with J, JIVED, JIVER, JIVES, JIVEY, JAVEL and JUVES, and every one scores at least 15. JIVEY leads the whole list at 18, and JIVED follows on 16.

J is worth 8 in Scrabble, so those six sit far above the pack. The next tier is WAVEY on 14, then COVEY and GYVED on 13, a clear drop once the J words run out.

How the 139 split by ending

R and S finish 33 matches each, D closes 22, N 18 and L 15. That mix turns the list into agent nouns such as LOVER and ROVER, third-person verbs such as LOVES and MOVES, and past tenses such as MOVED and SAVED.

The verbs share one trick. Strip the silent E from MOVE, LOVE or SAVE and you can bolt on -S, -D or -R, which is why LOVER, LOVES and LOVED all turn up on the same frame.

The -OVE- spine that ties the list together