7-letter words with L as the 3rd letter and A as the 7th letter

The pattern is _ _ L _ _ _ A, so both fixed positions matter: a word ending in A does not qualify unless its third letter is L. Familiar matches include MILITIA, DILEMMA, MALARIA, and BOLOGNA. The list draws from tournament dictionaries, but its entries are not all shared across Collins, NWL2023, and ENABLE.

7-letter words with L as the 3rd letter and A as the 7th letter

• Exactly 75 tournament-dictionary words match the L-third, A-last pattern.
• Every match ends in A; the final letter is fixed rather than a clue to sort further.
• Only 5 entries rank among the top 25,000 English words by frequency.
• ZELKOVA leads the scoring examples at 23 Scrabble points, ahead of POLYZOA at 21.
• P is the most common opening letter, with 11 matches; M follows with 9.

Which matching words score highest in Scrabble?

ZELKOVA scores 23 points, the highest value among the examples; POLYZOA scores 21. HALAKHA reaches 17, while SILIQUA and JELLABA each score 16. Those unusual spellings are worth checking against your game’s word list before you build a play around them.

The average score is 11, so the top few are clear outliers. For a more recognizable choice, KALIMBA and HALACHA each score 15, while PALMYRA scores 14. Keep the premium-letter options in mind, but don’t mistake a high tile score for a familiar word.

How to narrow down the L-and-A pattern

For a clue with fixed letters, enter L in position three and A in position seven rather than searching for words that merely contain both letters. That distinction sharply narrows the results: the same third-position L paired with a final S has 832 matches, compared with 75 ending in A.

The 75 matches also vary by starting letter: 11 begin with P, 9 with M, and 8 with S. Treat those counts as a way to prioritize guesses, not a promise that the most common opening will fit your crossing letters. Only 5 entries are common by the frequency measure, so many matches are specialist vocabulary.