7-letter words with U as the 2nd letter and R as the 5th letter

R in fifth place leaves two tiles to finish, and the frame _ U _ _ R _ _ settles into a handful of endings. -RED, -RAL, -RES, -RAS, -RIC and -RIS together cover nearly half the list. A fixed U and R plus a guessed ending is usually enough.

The U-R frame at a glance

• Closers: S ends 33 words, L ends 22, D ends 18 and E ends 12.
• Openers: S starts 18 words, O starts 16, A starts 11, and F, P and Q start 9 each.
• QUADRIC scores 19, with BUCKRAM and QUADRAT at 17.
• 8 matches are common words, including HUNDRED, FUNERAL and SUBURBS.

Which two-letter-plus endings should you know?

-RED and -RAL lead with 16 words each. -RED gives HUNDRED, RUMORED, SUTURED, TUTORED and SUGARED, and -RAL gives FUNERAL, NUMERAL and the rare AURORAL. -RES adds 11, such as FUTURES and SUTURES, and -RAS adds 9, such as TUNDRAS and AURORAS.

-RIC and -RIS add 6 and 5, with QUADRIC, NUMERIC and BUTYRIC in the first group. The six endings together total 63, or about half the list.

The -RED group is mostly past-tense verbs built on a noun ending in -OR or -ER, such as HUMORED, RUMORED, SUTURED and TUTORED. Strip the ending and you get HUMOR, RUMOR, SUTURE and TUTOR, which is a quick way to check a candidate.

Which openers matter?

OUT- opens 14 words here, more than any other three-letter start, and S has 18 words overall. OUTBRED, OUTCROP, OUTDROP, OUTGREW and OUTGROW are the ones you can build quickly.

QUA- adds six: QUADRAT, QUADRIC, QUAERED, QUAERES, QUARREL and QUATRES. QUARREL is the one that is common, and QUADRIC is the one that scores.

Beyond OUT-, the SUB- start gives 7 words in this frame, among them SUBURBS and SUBERIC, so a known S plus U leaves a small, manageable group.

Where the points are