7-letter words with T as the 3rd letter and X as the 5th letter

The fixed letters leave a tight set: none of these entries falls within the top 25,000 English words by frequency, but the mix is still interesting for word games. Seven end in S, five end in D, and the strongest listed Scrabble plays reach 17 points. Check your game’s chosen dictionary before playing an unfamiliar entry.

The pattern at a glance

• Exactly 15 tournament-dictionary words have T third and X fifth.
• Untaxed is one of the more recognizable matches.
• Seven words end in S; five end in D.
• Botoxed, betaxed, and vitexes each score 17 points.

How many words fit T-third, X-fifth?

Exactly 15 7-letter words with T as the 3rd letter and X as the 5th letter appear in at least one tournament dictionary. Collins includes 12, NWL2023 includes 11, and ENABLE includes 8; those counts overlap, so they do not add up to 15.

The starting letters are l, u, b, d, e, r, and v. U leads with four words, while B starts three; D, E, and R start two each, and L and V start one each. That makes U the most productive first-letter clue in this small group.

Which endings and scores stand out?

Seven matches end in S, including detoxes, botoxes, latexes, retaxes, untaxes, urtexts, and vitexes. Five end in D: botoxed, detoxed, betaxed, retaxed, and untaxed. The remaining three end in A or E, so checking the final letter quickly narrows the choices.

For Scrabble scoring, botoxed, betaxed, and vitexes lead at 17 points each. Detoxed and botoxes score 16, while untaxed, detoxes, and retaxed score 15. The average is 15.1 points, but none of these entries is common by the frequency cutoff.

A useful comparison: changing the fifth letter from X to I expands the matching set to 388 words. For 7-letter words with T as the 3rd letter and X as the 5th letter, the X is the real bottleneck, not the T.