7-letter words with U as the 1st letter and O as the 4th letter

A fourth-place O is mostly a UN- or UP- word with a short stem tucked in the middle, which is why 94 of the 121 start with UN. Plurals and past tenses dominate the endings. Learn those two shapes and the list stops looking long.

U _ _ O _ _ _ by the numbers

• Collins lists all 121, NWL2023 lists 85 and ENABLE lists 81.
• Openings: UN leads with 94 words and UP follows with 23.
• Last letters: S ends 51 words, D ends 32 and E ends 9.
• Best scorers: UNBOXED and UNZONED at 17, then UNBOXES at 16.
• Familiar words: UNCOVER, UNFOLDS and UPLOADS are the only three in the top 25,000.

Why do so many of these words end in S or D?

Most are plural nouns or third-person verbs, so S closes 51 of the 121, about 42 percent. D takes another 32, and together they cover roughly seven words in ten.

Twenty of the D words are -ED forms, among them UNBOXED, UNZONED, UNYOKED, UNMOVED, UNLOVED and UNBOWED. The rest are mostly -OUND words, as in UNSOUND, UNBOUND and UNWOUND, with UNHOARD and UPHOARD adding a pair of -OARD endings.

Which words score the most?

UNBOXED earns 17 because of the 8-point X, and UNZONED matches it through the 10-point Z. UNBOXES drops to 16 since the S is worth only 1, and UNCOCKS, UNYOKED and UPLOCKS tie at 15.

Seven tiles in one turn bring the 50-point Scrabble bingo bonus, which outweighs any of those gaps. Check your game's word list for the less common entries, since NWL2023 accepts 85 of the 121 and ENABLE accepts 81.

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