6-letter words with O as the 4th letter and W as the 5th letter

With O fixed in position four and W immediately after it, only the first three letters and final letter vary. The 42 matches range from familiar forms such as allows, throws, and widows to less common entries such as oxbows and shrowd. Eight qualify as common by our frequency measure, so the pattern mixes everyday vocabulary with specialized entries.

Pattern facts at a glance

• The pattern has 42 matches across the tournament dictionaries.
• Collins accepts 41 matches; ENABLE accepts 30 and NWL2023 accepts 31.
• Eight entries meet our common-frequency threshold.
• Scrabble scoring gives oxbows the highest score: 18 points.
• 24 words end in S, compared with 11 ending in N.

Which endings appear most often?

Twenty-four of the 42 entries end in S, while 11 end in N; only seven finish with other letters. Three end in L, and A, D, E, and Y each occur once. That skew makes the final position a quick filter: a known S or N gives you most of the options in this pattern.

Many S-final entries are plurals or verb forms: arrows, elbows, widows, throws, allows, and endows show the range. The first letters are less concentrated: S begins eight words, U six, R and T four each, while A and E begin three apiece. A starting-S clue narrows the choices, but less sharply than the fixed O-W pair.

Which ___ow_ words score highest?

Scrabble scoring puts oxbows first at 18 points, followed by yakows at 16 and kapows at 15. Behowl, cahows, and sybows each score 14, while widows scores 13. The top scores belong to less familiar words, so check your game's dictionary before committing one to a rack.

The 42-word total combines entries found in at least one of Collins, ENABLE, or NWL2023; it does not mean every game accepts every word. Collins has 41 matches, but ENABLE has 30 and NWL2023 has 31. For a broader pattern, O in position four with N in position five has 198 matches; changing W to N opens many more choices.