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

The pattern fixes two letters in the middle, but leaves the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, and final letters open. That makes familiar options such as STEALTH and STEWARD sit alongside less common entries like STEVENS and STENCIL. Counts combine words found in at least one tournament dictionary, so the total is a union rather than a count for any single dictionary.

Quick facts about this T-E pattern

• There are 107 seven-letter matches across the covered tournament dictionaries.
• S starts 91 matches, far more than any other first letter.
• The most frequent final letter is D, with 28 words.
• ITEMIZE leads the scoring examples at 18 points.
• Twelve entries rank among the top 25,000 English words by frequency.

Which letters begin and end these words?

S begins 91 of the 107 matches, about 85%; I is next with five, while A and P each begin three. E and U start two apiece, and C starts one. The pattern is therefore strongly concentrated in S words, including STEPPED, STEALTH, STEWARD, and STENCIL.

D is the leading final letter, appearing in 28 words; S ends 16 and R ends 13. E closes 11 entries, while N closes nine. The familiar examples show several of those endings: STEPPED ends in D, STEVENS in S, and ETERNAL in L.

If the final tile is known, use it to narrow the choices rather than treating every T-E match as equally likely.

Which T-E words score well in word games?

ITEMIZE scores 18 points, the strongest score for this pattern. STENCHY and STEMBOK each score 15, while STEWBUM and STENOKY score 14. More familiar entries score less: STEPMOM is 13 and STEPPED is 12.

Those figures make ITEMIZE the standout when you are comparing base tile scores, before board premiums.

The average score is 9.4, so the top scorer sits well above a typical match. Dictionary coverage also varies: Collins contains 103 entries, NWL2023 has 72, and ENABLE has 64; those sets overlap, so their counts do not add up to the 107-word total. Check your game's word list before playing a less familiar option.