6-letter words with I as the 4th letter and C as the 5th letter

This frame mixes boardroom words with crossword rarities. OFFICE, POLICE, CHOICE, NOTICE, ADVICE and DEVICE are all here, which pushes the common count to 26, about one in four. The other end of the list holds -CK forms such as MEDICK, INWICK and UPTICK that only work with the K.

How the I-and-C matches split

• 109 matches place I in slot four and C in slot five.
• Forty-one end in -CS, 20 in -CE and 14 in -CK.
• Twenty-six matches count as common, roughly one in four.
• M opens 17 matches, A 13, C 12 and S 11.
• QUAICH tops the list on 20, with TCHICK next on 17.

The -CE group is the everyday one

Twenty matches end in -CE, and most of them are ordinary vocabulary: OFFICE, POLICE, CHOICE, NOTICE, ADVICE, DEVICE, MALICE, NOVICE, ENTICE, SLUICE, SPLICE and THRICE. That one ending holds a dozen words most players already know.

The 41 -CS words read differently. TOPICS, COMICS, BASICS, OPTICS, RELICS, ANTICS, ETHICS, LYRICS and CYNICS all look like plurals, and several double as subject labels, which is the main reason 26 matches count as common.

Scores, from QUAICH to the -CK tail

QUAICH reaches 20 on its Q, and TCHICK follows on 17. SHTICK, TOXICS, LEXICA, MEDICK and INWICK each land on 15, while OFFICE and UPTICK reach 14.

The 14 -CK words punish anyone reaching for a T or Y ending: MEDICK, INWICK, UPTICK and TCHICK only work with the K. Collins keeps 107 of the 109, NWL2023 83 and ENABLE 79, and the 10.8 average sits just above the six-letter norm.

Reading a C in the fifth slot