6-letter words with L as the 2nd letter and Y as the 4th letter

The fixed pattern is _L_Y__, with A starting 12 of the 29 matches; P follows with 5. PLAYED, PLAYER, SLAYER, SLAYED, and FLAYED give the pattern a familiar face, but only 3 entries are common by our measure. Several others are inflected forms or specialist terms, so a crossword fit is not always a word you use every day.

At a glance: the _L_Y__ pattern

• The pattern returns 29 six-letter matches across the covered tournament dictionaries.
• A leads with 12 words; P has 5, while C and F each have 4.
• Eleven matches end in S and 10 end in D.
• CLAYEY and ALKYDS lead the listed Scrabble scores at 14 points each.

How many 6-letter words have L second and Y fourth?

There are 29 matches. The dictionary totals are 23 in ENABLE, 28 in Collins, and 24 in NWL2023; those counts overlap, so they do not add up to the total. Check your game's word list before playing a less familiar entry.

The endings are unusually concentrated: 21 of the 29 finish in S or D. That leaves 8 words ending in R, E, H, T, U, or Y. PLAYED and PLAYER show how changing the final letters can turn this pattern into familiar forms, while many other matches are less common.

Which matches stand out for play and score?

CLAYEY and ALKYDS score 14 points each on the listed Scrabble values, ahead of FLAYED, ALKYNE, FLEYED, and ALKYLS at 13. PLAYED scores 12. The average score across the set is 11.1, so those top entries beat the typical match without needing a long word.

Familiar forms such as SLAYER and FLAYED are easier to recognize than ALKYNE or ALKyds, but the less familiar words can be the scoring choices. For a neighboring pattern, the Y-in-fourth position has 31 seven-letter matches and 22 five-letter matches.