5-letter words with Z as the 3rd letter and R as the 5th letter

The third and fifth tiles are locked, so a solver fills only the middle slot and the two ends. Collins holds all 17 matches, NWL2023 and ENABLE each keep 13, and gazer and razor are the only Wordle answers in the group. Razor is also the single everyday word.

At a glance for the -Z?R group

• Every one of the 17 matches closes on R, and the -ZER family is the largest with seven entries.
• Five words share the top score of 17 points: WAZIR, VIZIR, VIZOR, HAZER and VEZIR.
• V starts three matches, while D, G, R and S start two each.
• RAZOR is the only common word here and one of just two Wordle answers, with GAZER.
• The average Scrabble score is 15.4, high for any five-letter pattern.

Which letters lead into the Z?

First letters cluster tightly. V opens VEZIR, VIZIR and VIZOR, then D, G, R and S each open two, so five consonants account for 11 of the 17. The remaining six matches begin with B, H, L, M, N or W, one apiece.

Much of the list is old occupational or dialect vocabulary. A lazar is a leper, a mazer was a maple drinking bowl, and a sizar is a student who pays reduced fees at Cambridge or Trinity College Dublin. That history explains why only RAZOR survives in ordinary English.

Are these words worth playing in Wordle?

GAZER and RAZOR have both appeared as answers, and all 17 entries sit on the accepted-guess list, so none of them will be rejected. Nearly every match is a two-vowel word with the rare Z holding the middle, and the fourth tile is always a vowel.

Four matches sit in Collins without appearing in NWL2023: DAZER, NAZIR, VEZIR and WAZIR. Verify those against the rules your game uses.

On the board, Z pays 10 points on its own, which lifts an otherwise plain set to an average of 15.4. VIZOR and VIZIR reach 17 by pairing the Z with a V, and RAZOR, the everyday pick, still returns 14.