6-letter words with D as the 1st letter and F as the 3rd letter

Thirty of the 42 matches begin DEF-, which makes this pattern feel less random than most. Defeat, defend, define and differ are familiar; defuze, deflex and deffly are not. Collins accepts 42, NWL2023 36 and ENABLE 32, and just 6 matches are common words.

The D-and-F pattern at a glance

• 42 matches: Collins keeps 42, NWL2023 36 and ENABLE 32.
• 30 of the 42 open DEF-, making it an unusually prefix-heavy pattern.
• Defeat, defend, define and differ are the recognisable core.
• Ten matches carry a double F, from doffed and duffel to the Collins-only deffly.
• Only 6 matches sit in the top 25,000 English words by frequency.
• Average Scrabble value is 11.8 points.

Which letters follow D before F?

E dominates: 30 of the 42 open DEF-, while A takes 5, U 4, O 2 and I just 1. That imbalance shows in the spellings, because DEF- lands the F beside a vowel, as in defeat, defend, defile and defuse.

The remaining openings are rarer, and doffed, duffed and daffed are the main non-DEF- scorers, each with a doubled F in the middle.

Which D-F words score highest?

Defuze leads on 19, deflex follows on 17 and deffly reaches 16, but only defuze sits in all three tournament dictionaries; deflex and deffly are Collins-only spellings. Behind them, doffed, duffed and daffed tie on 14.

Those three 14-point forms all end in -FFED, so they reward a rack holding two F tiles. The everyday words defeat, defend and define are far cheaper, which is the trade-off this pattern forces. Check your game's word list before playing deflex or deffly.

Using the DEF- cluster