6-letter words with A as the 2nd letter and H as the 4th letter

RATHER, FATHER and GATHER set the tone, and WASHED, LASHES and DASHED follow close behind. Those ASH words fill 55 of the 126 matches, close to half the list. The frame also scores well for its size, averaging 11.8 points on the strength of MAZHBI, KATHAK and JAGHIR.

The A second, H fourth frame at a glance

• 126 matches fix A second and H fourth.
• NWL2023 accepts 94 and ENABLE 87, out of 122 that Collins holds.
• 55 matches contain the ASH string.
• MAZHBI leads the list on 22 points.
• 47 matches end in S, the largest ending group.

Why does ASH fill so much of this frame?

Put A second and H fourth and the natural filler between them is S, giving the ASH block: WASHED, WASHER, WASHES, LASHES, MASHED, DASHED, BASHED and CASHED. That is 55 of the 126 matches, and most of them are past tenses or plurals.

The rest split between other middle letters: DAPHNE and FATHOM keep A-P-H, MAYHEM and MAYHAP run A-Y-H, and YACHTS works A-C-H. When a clue fixes only the A and H slots, test S in the third position before anything else.

Which words here score the most?

MAZHBI is the runaway leader on 22, helped by a Z and an H together, and only 16 of the 126 count as common English. SAZHEN reaches 18, then KATHAK, PACHAK and JAGHIR tie on 17. MAYHEM and MAYHAP, the friendlier spellings, still manage 16 apiece.

At 11.8, the average is high for a six-letter frame, so an obscure word can beat a familiar one by a wide margin here. S closes 47 matches, D 21 and R 16. Collins accepts 122 of the 126, but 32 rest on Collins alone and 101 come with a definition, which is why SAZHEN and its relatives need checking against your game's word list.