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

With N in fifth place, most words close with an -NGS, -NDS or -NED tail, so the last three letters narrow the field fast. Plurals dominate, with UNWINDS and UPLANDS typical of the group. A few Y words, URGENCY and UNCANNY among them, are the everyday exceptions.

What stands out in this list

• Collins takes all 57 words, NWL2023 takes 41 and ENABLE takes 39.
• Best scorer: UNZONED with 17, then UNFANCY and UNKINKS with 15.
• Everyday vocabulary: only URGENCY and UNCANNY make the top 25,000 English words.
• Last letter: S ends 26 words, Y ends 10 and D ends 7.
• A typical word is worth 10.6 points.

What do the words end in?

S accounts for 26 of the 57, a little under half. The two biggest tails hold 8 words each: -NGS, as in UNHANGS, UPGANGS and URGINGS, and -NDS, as in UNBENDS, UNWINDS and UPLANDS.

Y comes second with ten words, including URGENCY, UNCANNY, UNFANCY, UNFUNNY, UNMANLY and UNSUNNY. The -NNY group alone supplies three of them, and a stray -NCY pair, URGENCY and UNFANCY, shares the same shape. Seven end in D, and all seven are -NED forms, from UNLINED and UNMINED to UNZONED.

Why is UNZONED the top word here?

UNZONED earns 17 points because the Z is worth 10 on its own. UNFANCY and UNKINKS reach 15 through a 4-point F and two 5-point Ks respectively.

Any play of seven tiles takes the 50-point Scrabble bonus, which swamps those differences. UNWINDS, UNLINED and UNBENDS lean on common letters, so they are the likeliest finds on a real rack.

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