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

Y sits fifth in all 51 matches, and -YS plurals explain 44 of them: alleys, moneys, honeys, bogeys, abbeys, mateys, coneys, foleys and loveys. Six more close in -EYE, the eye-compound family of redeye, ribeye, bigeye, bugeye, mudeye and waxeye. C opens 8, and M and P open 6 each.

How the E-Y words break down

Forty-four matches end in -YS, and every one is a plural of a five-letter word: alleys, moneys, honeys, bogeys, coneys, foleys, homeys and blueys.

Six end in -EYE instead: redeye, ribeye, bigeye, bugeye, mudeye and waxeye. Four name an eye in nature, and ribeye is the cut of beef.

The last match, poleyn, ends in -YN.

The -YS plurals all come from five-letter bases, so every one has a matching shorter word: alley, money, honey, bogey and coney.

Not one common word in the 51

• Not a single match ranks among the 25,000 most frequent English words.
• Cozeys and jakeys tie at 20, the highest scores in the set.
• Waxeye scores 19, while wifeys, pokeys and waveys reach 15.
• C opens 8 matches, more than M and P on 6 each.
• The average sits at 12.3, lifted by the Y and Z tiles.

The -EYE compounds and the Z words

Redeye, ribeye, bigeye, bugeye, mudeye and waxeye are the six -EYE entries, and they read far more easily than the -YS plurals around them.

The high scorers come from Y and Z instead. Cozeys and jakeys hit 20 on their Z, J and Y, waxeye reaches 19, and jaseys scores 16.

Collins lists 50 of the 51 matches, NWL2023 35 and ENABLE 29, a wide split for a pattern this size.