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

With N fixed at the end, the frame _ U _ _ _ _ N is a puzzle of suffixes. Six tails, -ION, -MEN, -MAN, -AIN, -EON and -OWN, cover more than two in five of the words, and the rest are scattered. Plenty of them are everyday English.

The U-N list in numbers

• S opens 18 words, O opens 13, and D, M and P open 12 each.
• Collins takes all 138, NWL2023 takes 97 and ENABLE takes 92.
• MUEZZIN scores 27, QUICKEN 22, and JUNKMAN, JUNKMEN and HUFFKIN 20.
• 13 matches are common, including AUCTION, CURTAIN and DUNGEON.

Which endings should you test first?

-ION leads with 17 words: AUCTION, TUITION, SUCTION, CUSHION, BULLION and MULLION. After it come -MEN with 12, -MAN with 10, -AIN with 8, -EON with 7 and -OWN with 5.

Add those up and you reach 59 of the 138, or more than two in five. The -MAN and -MEN words are the same pairs found in the U-second, M-fifth frame, such as JUNKMAN and JUNKMEN, JURYMAN and JURYMEN.

Openers are less decisive. S starts 18 words, from SUBJOIN, SUNBURN and SUNDOWN to SURLOIN and SUSTAIN, and O starts 13. OUT- supplies 11 of the O words, among them OUTBURN, OUTEARN, OUTGRIN, OUTSEEN, OUTSPAN and OUTWORN.

Which everyday words fit?

AUCTION, SURGEON, TUITION, SUSTAIN, CURTAIN, PUMPKIN, CUSHION, DUNGEON, SUCTION, BULLPEN, BULLION, RUNDOWN and PULLMAN all rank among the top 25,000 English words. Most come from the -ION and -AIN groups.

The -KIN family adds PUMPKIN, BUMPKIN and LUMPKIN, and the -EON family adds SURGEON, DUNGEON and BURGEON. Learn those three small families and a surprising share of the common words is covered.

Scoring note