7-letter words with U as the 2nd letter and A as the 3rd letter

Think QUA-. The U-A core is the back half of the classic Q-U-A cluster, so more than half the matches are Q words. The rest lean on G, D and S openings such as GUARDED, DUALITY and SUASION, and the Q-heavy mix lifts the average score to 15.

The ?UA???? pattern at a glance

• Collins accepts 88 of the 89, NWL2023 accepts 72 and ENABLE accepts 68.
• Ten are common words, including QUALITY, QUARTER, QUALIFY and GUARDED.
• The average score is 15, with QUARTZY the top play at 28.
• The commonest last letters are S with 22 words, E with 12, and D and Y with 10 each.
• G opens 15 words, D opens 9 and S opens 6.

Why do so many of these words begin with Q?

Q almost never appears without a U behind it, and an A after that gives you the QUA- stem. QUAS- and QUAR- each open 9 words, and QUAN- opens 6, with QUASARS, QUARTET, QUARREL and QUANTUM as the familiar ones.

Away from Q, DUAL- opens 8 words (DUALITY, DUALISM, DUALIST) and GUAN- opens 7, among them GUANINE. GUARDED, GUARANI and GUARANA sit nearby under GUA-. NUANCED and NUANCES are the everyday pair behind the N opener, so a rack with N, C and E has an easy route in.

Which words here score the most points?

QUARTZY leads with 28 points, since Q and Z are each worth 10 and Y adds 4. Only Collins accepts it, though.

QUACKED, QUAFFED and QUAKILY follow at 23 and are valid in Collins, NWL2023 and ENABLE alike. QUALIFY and QUAFFER score 22, so a single safe Q play already beats the 15-point average by a wide margin.

Playing the pattern