7-letter words with U as the 2nd letter and M as the 4th letter

The frame _ U _ M _ _ _ splits cleanly in two. Double M, as in SUMMERS and HUMMING, gives almost two thirds of the list, and everything else hangs on a different third letter such as T, L or R. Check for the pair first, then look at the last tile, since an S ending narrows the field fastest.

Facts on the U-M frame

• S opens 14 words, M opens 13, G opens 11 and B opens 10.
• S closes 36 words, while G, T and Y close 9 each.
• QUAMASH scores 21, HUMMOCK 20, and MUMMIFY, QUOMODO and QUEMING 19.
• 9 matches rank among the top 25,000 English words.

How many of these words have a double M?

65 of 101, or about two in three. The SUM- group is the largest, with SUMMARY, SUMMERS, SUMMONS, SUMMITS and SUMMING among its 10 words. RUM-, GUM-, BUM- and MUM- stems fill most of the rest.

Rare double-M finds include PUMMELO, NUMMARY and GUMMATA, while DUMMIES, MUMMIES and RUMMIES show the -IES plural.

A final S closes 36 words overall, and 25 of those 36 are double-M words. That makes SUMMERS, SUMMITS, BUMMERS and RUMMERS the quickest wins when the last tile is an S.

What about the words without a double M?

Nine have T as the third letter, and they begin OUT-, NUT-, BUT- or HUT-: OUTMODE, OUTMOST, NUTMEGS and HUTMENT. Seven have L third, such as FULMARS, CULMING and CULMENS, and six have R third, including TURMOIL, MURMURS and SURMISE.

SUBMITS and SUBMENU use B as the third letter, and AUGMENT uses G. AUGMENT and TURMOIL are the only everyday words that escape the double-M group.

A scoring note