7-letter words with P as the 2nd letter and E as the 3rd letter

The pattern is _PE____, but the words are not spread evenly across starting letters: 47 begin with S. Familiar options such as SPECIAL and SPEAKER sit beside less common entries like OPERANT and SPECKED. Use the fixed letters to narrow a puzzle, then check the remaining positions against your rack or crossing clues.

At a glance: the P-E pattern

• 71 tournament-dictionary entries match the seven-letter pattern _PE____.
• S starts 47 matches; O and A are the next most frequent first letters, with 8 and 7 each.
• Only 10 matches rank among the top 25,000 English words by frequency.
• The dictionary counts differ: Collins has 70 matches, NWL2023 has 54, and ENABLE has 53.
• SPECIFY leads the scoring examples at 17 points; SPECKED scores 16.

How do these seven-letter matches begin and end?

S dominates the opening position: SPEAKER, SPECIES, SPELLED and SPENDER all follow the same S-P-E start. That concentration makes an S a strong first check when your clue fixes P second and E third, but it does not rule out alternatives.

The remaining starts are more varied. OPERATE and OPENERS begin with O, while APELIKE and APERIOD appear among the A entries. At the other end, D is the most common final letter, with 18 matches; S follows with 16, then R with 11.

Scoring and game-list limits

SPECIFY is the top scorer in the examples at 17 points, helped by its high-value Y and F. SPECKED reaches 16, while SPECKLE scores 15. Those totals are useful for comparing words on a plain board, but premium squares can change the result.

A tight pattern does not guarantee an everyday answer: just 10 matches are common by the frequency measure, and 52 have definitions. Some candidates also appear in one tournament dictionary but not another, so check your game's word list before committing. For a nearby clue, compare seven-letter words with P second and I third.