6-letter words with A as the 4th letter and Y as the 5th letter

The fixed pattern is _ _ _ A Y _. Its 47 matches are unusually lopsided at the end: 40 finish with S. Familiar entries include ALWAYS, ESSAYS, DELAYS, and PAPAYA, but just 7 count as common by word frequency, which makes the pattern easier to recognize than to play from memory.

6-letter words with A as the 4th letter and Y as the 5th letter

• 47 tournament-dictionary entries fit the six-letter pattern _ _ _ A Y _.
• 40 end in S; the other endings are A, E, and D.
• ALWAYS, ESSAYS, and PAPAYA are recognizable examples.
• BYWAYS leads the scoring list at 17 points; IXNAYS follows at 16.
• Counts differ by lexicon: Collins has 45, NWL2023 has 35, and ENABLE has 30.

Why do most matches finish with S?

Forty of the 47 finish that way, with ESSAYS, DELAYS, ARRAYS, SPRAYS, RELAYS, and ASSAYS showing how often this pattern forms a plural or verb ending. The remaining matches end in A, E, or D; PAPAYA shows that the pattern is not limited to S.

Starting letters spread out more evenly: A leads with 7, followed by S with 6 and R with 5; D and P each contribute 4. ALWAYS and ARRAYS are easy A-starting anchors, while STRAYS and SPRAYS show how an initial S fits the fixed AY sequence.

Which high scorers are worth spotting?

6-letter words with A as the 4th letter and Y as the 5th letter are a poor pattern to memorize as one familiar word family: only 7 count as common, while the full tournament-dictionary pool is 47. The dictionary totals also vary: Collins has 45 matches, NWL2023 has 35, and ENABLE has 30.

The counterintuitive pick is BYWAYS: it scores 17 points before board bonuses, ahead of IXNAYS at 16 and KABAYA at 15. The top score does not make the word the most familiar; keep raw tile value separate from how well you know the word.