7-letter words with U as the 3rd letter and O as the 5th letter

Two endings do most of the work here: -OUS gives 15 words and -ONS gives 14. That is 29 of the 66, or nearly half, and most of the rest follow a letter-before-O pattern with T, R or M. The result is a frame you can crack from the last three letters.

The U third, O fifth frame in numbers

• Dictionary spread: 63 words in Collins, 49 in NWL2023, 43 in ENABLE.
• GLUCOSE, NEURONS, COUPONS, AQUEOUS and SHUTOUT are the five common words.
• A final S closes 37 words, while E closes 7, A closes 5, and D and R close 3 each.
• Openers: S 11, B 6, C 6, P 5 and V 5.
• A typical word is worth 10.4 points.

Which words end in -OUS or -ONS in this frame?

-OUS covers AQUEOUS, RAUCOUS, EMULOUS, ANUROUS, PLUMOUS and SOUKOUS. -ONS covers NEURONS, COUPONS, BOUTONS, MOUTONS, PLUTONS and GOUJONS.

Both tails fit a quick guess. An adjective clue points to -OUS, and a plural noun clue points to -ONS. Those are the quiet endings, so give them a try once -OUS and -ONS fail.

Singular words close the other way: GLUCOSE and PLUMOSE end in -OSE, and NEUROMA, LEUKOMA and LEUCOMA end in -OMA.

How does the fourth letter split the rest?

T leads with 13 words (SHUTOUT, SHUTOFF, BOUTONS), R follows with 9 (NEURONS, NEUROMA) and M with 9 (SPUMONI, PLUMOSE, GRUMOUS). L gives 6, among them COULOMB, COULOIR and EMULOUS.

SQUOOSH scores 19 and AQUEOUS, SHUTOFF and CHUKORS score 16. VAUDOUX reaches 18 because of its X, but it is Collins-only.

Reading the end of the rack