7-letter words with O as the 1st letter and I as the 5th letter

The pattern is O___I__, so the first and fifth letters are fixed while the other five positions vary. OUTSIDE, OPENING, ONGOING, and OUTLIER show how different the remaining letters can be. Of the 142 entries, 14 are classed as common; many others are specialist or less familiar words, so a matching pattern alone does not guarantee a word will fit your game.

What stands out in this O-and-I pattern?

• There are 142 matching words across the tournament dictionaries counted here.
• Collins includes 141 matches, compared with 114 in NWL2023 and 106 in ENABLE.
• Only 14 matches are classed as common, making familiar examples a small part of the set.
• E is the most frequent final letter, ending 34 words; S follows with 32.
• The average Scrabble score is 11 points.

Which words fit, and which score the most?

OUTSIDE, OPENING, OPINION, ONGOING, and OUTLINE are recognizable choices that show several ways to fill the open slots. ORIGINS and OUTFITS end in S, while OUTSIDE and OUTLIVE end in E, the two most common final letters in this group.

For a high-value play, OZONIZE leads at 25 points, followed by OXIDIZE at 24 and OXAZINE at 23. OUTJINX scores 21. Those totals make the less familiar Z- and X-heavy entries stand out, but a word's tile score is only part of its board value: premium squares and cross-words can change the result.

How does this pattern compare with nearby letter choices?

Changing the first letter while keeping I in fifth place can expand the pool sharply: the S-first pattern has 648 matches, and P-first has 585. Keeping O first but changing the fifth letter also shifts the count; O in fifth place has 91 matches, while A in fifth has 129.

That makes O___I__ a relatively tight search pattern among these comparisons. Still, the 142 entries span different dictionary coverage: 141 appear in Collins, but only 106 appear in ENABLE. Check your game's word list before committing to a less familiar option such as OZONIZE or OXAZINE.