5-letter words with Y as the 1st letter and E as the 4th letter

Fixing the fourth tile at E leaves the shape Y _ _ E _. Eighteen of the 37 words close on S and eight more on D, so the final letter sorts them fastest. Nine put K in the middle slot, which is where the YOKE and YIKE families live.

5-letter words with Y as the 1st letter and E as the 4th letter

• 37 tournament words fit the frame Y _ _ E _.
• Eighteen end in S, eight in D, and eleven in R, N, L, H, E or Y.
• Only YATES and YIKES rank among the most common English words.
• YEXED leads the scores at 16, with YAJES and YEXES one point back.
• No Wordle answer carries this shape, though 36 of the 37 are accepted guesses.

Why do so many of these words end in D?

All eight D-endings are past-tense verb forms: YAWED, YCLED, YDRED, YIKED, YOKED, YOWED, YUKED and YEXED. They share the -ED tail, and YCLED and YDRED are obsolete spellings that only a tournament list keeps alive. YOKED and YAWED are the two you are most likely to meet outside a word game.

The S group is friendlier. YIKES, YOKES, YULES and YORES are forms of words you already use, and the three R-endings all carry -ER: YAGER, YARER and YOKER. The two L-endings are YODEL and YOKEL, so the -EL pair is easy to remember.

Which middle letters do Y-E words use?

K fills the third slot nine times, more than any other letter, and every one of those nine belongs to the YIKE, YOKE or YUKE family: YIKES, YIKED, YLKES, YOKED, YOKEL, YOKER, YOKES, YUKED and YUKES. W is next, in five words: YAWED, YOWED, YOWES, YAWEY and YEWEN.

Dictionary coverage is the catch, since Collins lists 35 of the 37 while NWL2023 lists 21 and ENABLE only 16; a legal Collins play such as YCLED will bounce in many app games. Twenty-one of the 37 have a definition, and the rest are entries without an explanation. Sorting by ending is still the quickest route, because S and D alone account for 26 words.

Group by the last letter before you scan