6-letter words with H as the 1st letter and R as the 3rd letter

Fix H in the opening spot and R in the third, and the pattern leaves four letters to solve. Familiar options include HARDER, HARDLY, HORSES, and HEROES; less everyday entries sit beside them. The ending counts also narrow the search: S and D lead, while only 10 words finish with R.

The pattern at a glance

• 98 six-letter words match H in position one and R in position three.
• HARDER, HARDLY, HORSES, and HORROR are recognizable examples.
• S is the most common final letter, appearing in 19 matches; D follows with 17.
• Only 25 matches rank among the top 25,000 English words by word frequency.

Which matching words score highest?

HORKEY tops the Scrabble scores at 16 points. HEREBY, HARKED, and HORKED each score 14, so the less familiar spellings can beat everyday picks on the rack.

For a more recognizable play, HARDLY scores 13 and HARMED scores 12. HORKEY uses a K, worth 5 points in standard English-language Scrabble tile values, which explains much of its edge over words built from common letters.

How broad is the list across dictionaries?

Collins includes 96 of these matches, compared with 72 in NWL2023 and 69 in ENABLE. The totals overlap, so they are not separate groups to add together; the full count includes words appearing in at least one of those tournament dictionaries.

Only 25 entries are common by the frequency cutoff, despite examples such as HARDEN, HARMED, and HURDLE. That makes this pattern broader than a shortlist of familiar words, and an unusual match is not automatically playable in every game.

Among the endings, S and D account for 36 words together, while R closes 10. When the final tile is unknown, test S and D before spending guesses on rarer endings; check your game's word list for the less familiar entries.