7-letter words with U as the 1st letter and A as the 5th letter

The fifth-letter A almost always sits behind another vowel or a lone R. Of the 117 words, 35 have E in fourth place, as in UNHEARD and UNLEASH, and 23 have R there, as in UPGRADE and UNTRACK. Those two clusters cover just under half the list.

What the U _ _ _ A _ _ list looks like

• Collins accepts 117, NWL2023 77 and ENABLE 72.
• Collins players get every word; NWL2023 and ENABLE players lose a third or more of them.
• Eight are common words, including UNHEARD, UPGRADE, UPSCALE and URINARY.
• S ends 40 words and E ends 27, then T with 14.

Which letter pairs sit in front of the A?

E is the busiest fourth letter with 35 words: UNHEARD, UNLEARN, UNLEASH, UNMEANT, UNREADY and UPBEATS all share the EA core. R follows with 23, giving UPGRADE, UPDRAFT, UNBRAID, UNTRACK and UMBRAGE.

The prefix splits the same way. UN- starts 68 words and UP- starts 38, which leaves only 11 words with another second letter, such as URINARY, UMBRAGE and UVULARS.

Five words end in -ARY, which makes a reliable ending for a half-built rack: UNCHARY, UNITARY, UNWEARY, URINARY and UNSCARY. Each one has A in fifth place and R in sixth.

Which words score the most with A in fifth place?

UNCRAZY takes the top spot at 21 points, thanks to the 10-point Z. After it come UJAMAAS at 16, then UPHEAVE, UNCHARY, UPSPAKE and UPSWAYS at 15 each.

UNCRAZY and UPHEAVE are accepted in Collins, NWL2023 and ENABLE alike, but UPSPAKE and UJAMAAS are Collins-only. The average score here is 10.6, so a 15-point play is a good result.

Plural trick for the S endings