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

Q-U is the signature of this frame. More than a quarter of the matches start with those two letters, and the T in fifth place completes the QUAR-, QUIE- and QUIN- stems. The rest are mainly past-tense and plural forms, so the ending narrows things almost as fast as the opening.

Why this frame scores so high

• 135 words fit: Collins 131, NWL2023 106, ENABLE 90.
• 37 start with Q: QUI- opens 20 of them and QUA- opens 11.
• The average score is 12.1, and QUARTZY tops it at 28.
• 12 are common words, among them CURATOR, AUDITOR, LUNATIC and MUTATED.
• -TED ends 25 words and -TES ends 23, so 48 end in one of those two.

What are the Q words with a T in fifth place?

QUARTER, QUARTET, QUANTUM and QUIETLY are the common ones, with QUIETER close behind. Rarer entries include QUINTET, QUILTED, QUITTAL and QUARTIC, plus QUIETEN for anyone who needs a verb.

Every Q word here scores at least 16, because the 10-point Q plus six more tiles cannot fall below that. The best case is QUARTZY at 28, helped by a second 10-point Z.

Which endings follow the T?

25 words end in -TED, including CURATED, AUDITED and MUTATED. Another 23 end in -TES, and those are mostly mineral or chemical plurals such as AUGITES, DUNITES and HUMATES. You will rarely need them outside a word game.

The 48 combined -TED and -TES words make up 36 percent of this frame, so those two endings do most of the sorting once the Q words are ruled out.

Playing QUBYTES and QUARTZY