6-letter words with A as the 1st letter and L as the 3rd letter

The pattern puts A in the first spot and L in the third, leaving four letters open. The 53 matches appear in at least one of ENABLE, Collins, or NWL2023: Collins has 52, NWL2023 has 45, and ENABLE has 41. Only eight meet the common-word frequency cutoff, so expect familiar choices alongside specialist entries, with ASLEEP, ALLIES, and AFLOAT as easy starting points.

At a glance: the A-L pattern

• There are 53 six-letter matches, with A first and L third.
• Recognizable examples include ASLEEP, ALLOWS, and ALLIES; eight entries count as common.
• Collins has 52 matches, compared with 45 in NWL2023 and 41 in ENABLE.
• The average score is 8.4 points; ABLAZE and AXLIKE lead with 17.
• The final letter S appears 18 times, while E appears 15 times.

How many 6-letter words with A first and L third are there?

Exactly 53 fit. Their endings cluster around S and E: 18 words end in S and 15 in E. Together, those endings account for 33 of the 53 matches, or about 62 percent.

Once A and L are fixed, checking the final tile against S and E is a sensible first filter.

Other recorded endings include T, with four words, and G and M, with three each. D and H appear twice apiece, while B appears once. The pattern has eight common entries overall, so an unfamiliar ending or word is more likely to belong to the less familiar portion.

The top scores come from ABLAZE and AXLIKE

ABLAZE and AXLIKE each score 17 points, ahead of AZLONS at 15 and APLOMB at 12. These are base word scores; premium squares can raise a play’s total. AXLIKE and AZLONS are less familiar than ASLEEP, so check an unfamiliar play against your game’s dictionary.

For another constraint, compare 6-letter words with A first and L third to the same pattern at five or seven letters: those sets have 36 and 70 matches. The larger set at seven letters offers more candidates, but this six-letter group still mixes familiar words such as ALLOYS with rarer ones such as ABLUSH.