5-letter words with Y as the 1st letter and A as the 2nd letter

Y is one of the rarest ways to begin a five-letter word, and A after it is rarer still: 46 matches out of 182 words that open with Y. Twenty of the forty-six close on S, and only YACHT appears on the Wordle answer list. Four count as common English words.

YA words at a glance

• Forty-six words pair a first letter of Y with a second letter of A.
• Twenty end in S, 6 end in A and 5 end in Y, so the tail is easy to narrow.
• Ten repeat a letter, including YABBA, YABBY, YAKKA and YAPPY.
• YACHT is the only Wordle answer; YAHOO, YARDS and YATES are the other common words.
• YAKKA leads on 16 points, with YAPPY, YABBY, YAJES, YAKOW and YAMPY on 15.

Checking a YA guess before you play it

1. Read the ending first. An S in the last slot still leaves twenty candidates out of the forty-six.
2. An A at the end cuts the field to six: YABBA, YACCA, YACKA, YAKKA, YARFA and YARTA.
3. A Y at the end narrows it to five: YABBY, YAMPY, YAPPY, YAWEY and YAWNY.
4. YACHT is the only answer here, and YAJES is the one match Wordle will not even accept as a guess.

How the YA words score

YAKKA reaches 16 points on the strength of a doubled K, and five words sit one point behind: YAPPY, YABBY, YAJES, YAKOW and YAMPY. Three of the six best scorers carry a repeated letter, so doubling is a real pattern rather than a coincidence.

The value comes from unusual tiles rather than length. YAKKA spends two K tiles, YAJES leans on the J, and YAKOW pairs K with W. Only four members are common words, so most of the list is tournament vocabulary you will not meet in everyday writing.