7-letter words with A as the 1st letter and T as the 3rd letter

Write the pattern as A?T????: A is fixed at the start, T sits third, and four letters remain open. The matches include everyday words such as ARTICLE, ATTEMPT, ACTIONS, and AUTHORS, alongside less familiar tournament entries. Only 17 rank among common English words, so this pattern reaches well beyond the vocabulary you meet in daily reading.

A?T???? At a glance

• A total of 172 seven-letter entries match the fixed A?T???? pattern.
• ARTICLE, ATTEMPT, ACTIONS, and AUTHORS are recognizable examples from the group.
• Just 17 matches are classed as common, about one in ten of the full set.
• The dictionaries count 165 Collins entries, 126 NWL2023 entries, and 110 ENABLE entries.

How many 7-letter words have A first and T third?

There are 172 words matching A?T????. That puts this pattern close to A first with R third, which has 171 matches; changing the third letter to A raises the count to 174.

The endings are uneven. S is the most frequent final letter, with 55 matches; E follows at 20, then T at 15. If the final position is still open in your puzzle, checking S first narrows the search sharply.

Familiar examples show how varied the middle letters can be: ARTICLE and ARTWORK share the opening ART, while ATTEMPT doubles T and ANTENNA repeats N. Match the fixed positions first, then use any confirmed letters to trim the remaining choices.

Which A-first, T-third words score most?

• ALTEZZA leads the Scrabble scores at 25 points, but it is far less familiar than ARTICLE.
• APTERYX scores 19; ANTHRAX and ANTEFIX each score 17.
• ANTIQUE reaches 16 points, while ARTWORK scores 14 and is easier to recognize.
• A high tile score does not make an unfamiliar word playable in every dictionary.

A limit worth knowing