7-letter words with U as the 1st letter and E as the 3rd letter

Two openings account for most of this pattern. UNE- and URE- supply nine words each, 18 of the 30, and USE- adds four more. Only UNEQUAL and USELESS count as common English, so most of the rest is word-list material.

The three big openings

• UNE- (9): UNEQUAL, UNEARTH, UNEATEN, UNEAGER, UNENDED, UNEDGED, UNEDGES, UNEARED and UNEASES.
• URE- (9): UREDIUM, UREDIAL, UREDINE, UREIDES, UREASES, UREMIAS and three more science terms.
• USE- (4): USELESS, USEABLE, USEABLY and USEFULS.
• Others: ULEXITE, UKELELE, UPENDED, UTENSIL, UBEROUS and three UV- and UT- words.

What are the highest-scoring words with U first and E third?

UNEQUAL leads with 16 points, because the Q is worth 10. ULEXITE is next at 14 through its X, then USEABLY and UVEITIC tie at 12.

UKELELE and UPENDED make 11, and UNEARTH and UREDIUM make 10. The average is 9.3, so UNEQUAL is the only word that clears 15.

Everything else scores 14 or less. USELESS is the common word to try first, since S and L are easy tiles to hold.

Why are UNE- and URE- so common?

UNE- works on verbs that begin with E: EARTH gives UNEARTH, EAT gives UNEATEN, END gives UNENDED and EDGE gives UNEDGED. Each stem starts with a vowel, which is why the E lands in third place.

URE- is different. It opens chemistry and biology terms such as UREDIUM, UREDIAL, UREASES and UREIDES, so you will meet it more in word lists than in prose.

Which words will fail in a dictionary check?

Collins accepts all 30, while NWL2023 and ENABLE each accept 24. The same six words are missing from both: UNEDGED, UNEDGES, UNEARED, UREDINE, USEFULS and UBEROUS.

That makes the gap easy to remember. If a word ends in -EDGED or -EDGES, or starts with UBER-, assume it is Collins only.

A player on NWL2023 or ENABLE therefore has 24 words to work with, and a Collins player has all 30. The six gaps are rare, so you lose little by skipping them.