Letter Frequency in 5-Letter Words, by Position
We counted every letter in every position of the 8,585 five-letter words in our word list, and separately in the 1,668 that are common in everyday English. Here is what the numbers show.
Key findings
- The most common first letters of everyday five-letter words are S, C, B (15.5%, 9.2%, 8.5%).
- The most common last letters are S, E, Y. S ends 23.3% of them.
- E appears in 47.1% of everyday five-letter words, more than any other letter. Q is the rarest (0.8%).
- S ends 31.1% of all five-letter words in the full list but only 23.3% of everyday ones, because the full list is full of plurals.
Letter by position
Share of words with each letter in each position. Darker blue = more common. Hover a cell for details.
| Letter | Position 1 | Position 2 | Position 3 | Position 4 | Position 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | 4.6% | 16.2% | 13.5% | 5.3% | 2.0% |
| b | 8.5% | 0.4% | 1.7% | 1.3% | 0.2% |
| c | 9.2% | 1.4% | 2.4% | 6.5% | 0.7% |
| d | 4.7% | 0.7% | 3.1% | 4.0% | 6.5% |
| e | 1.7% | 11.4% | 8.0% | 17.9% | 14.4% |
| f | 6.5% | 0.2% | 0.9% | 1.3% | 1.0% |
| g | 4.0% | 0.3% | 2.9% | 2.8% | 1.2% |
| h | 3.8% | 6.9% | 0.3% | 1.2% | 5.4% |
| i | 0.6% | 9.8% | 11.4% | 4.6% | 0.2% |
| j | 1.4% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| k | 1.1% | 0.4% | 1.3% | 3.8% | 4.1% |
| l | 4.4% | 7.1% | 5.8% | 7.9% | 4.1% |
| m | 4.8% | 0.9% | 3.4% | 3.3% | 1.1% |
| n | 1.9% | 2.2% | 7.0% | 8.0% | 4.7% |
| o | 1.1% | 15.4% | 9.8% | 4.9% | 2.0% |
| p | 5.9% | 2.0% | 2.1% | 2.5% | 1.9% |
| q | 0.6% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| r | 4.9% | 11.0% | 7.9% | 6.2% | 6.8% |
| s | 15.5% | 0.6% | 3.3% | 6.1% | 23.3% |
| t | 7.3% | 3.4% | 4.8% | 6.9% | 8.0% |
| u | 1.0% | 7.0% | 5.7% | 1.8% | 0.0% |
| v | 1.7% | 0.2% | 2.1% | 1.6% | 0.0% |
| w | 4.2% | 1.6% | 0.8% | 1.4% | 0.5% |
| x | 0.0% | 0.3% | 0.5% | 0.0% | 0.1% |
| y | 0.7% | 0.6% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 11.6% |
| z | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.4% | 0.5% | 0.1% |
Show the same table for all 8,585 five-letter words
| Letter | Position 1 | Position 2 | Position 3 | Position 4 | Position 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | 5.8% | 17.2% | 9.9% | 7.7% | 4.1% |
| b | 6.8% | 0.6% | 2.5% | 1.6% | 0.4% |
| c | 7.7% | 1.4% | 3.1% | 3.3% | 1.1% |
| d | 5.3% | 0.7% | 3.2% | 3.5% | 6.8% |
| e | 2.2% | 12.3% | 6.6% | 19.7% | 10.8% |
| f | 5.0% | 0.2% | 1.4% | 1.7% | 0.6% |
| g | 4.8% | 0.6% | 2.8% | 3.2% | 1.0% |
| h | 3.9% | 4.4% | 0.8% | 1.6% | 3.0% |
| i | 1.4% | 11.2% | 8.6% | 6.7% | 1.7% |
| j | 1.6% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| k | 2.4% | 0.6% | 1.7% | 3.7% | 2.1% |
| l | 4.7% | 5.9% | 6.8% | 6.2% | 4.0% |
| m | 5.2% | 1.3% | 3.9% | 3.1% | 1.5% |
| n | 2.3% | 2.8% | 7.3% | 6.0% | 4.2% |
| o | 2.1% | 15.4% | 7.8% | 5.3% | 2.6% |
| p | 6.5% | 1.7% | 2.8% | 3.2% | 1.4% |
| q | 0.6% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| r | 4.9% | 7.5% | 9.2% | 5.3% | 6.1% |
| s | 12.2% | 0.7% | 3.9% | 4.1% | 31.1% |
| t | 6.3% | 1.9% | 5.1% | 7.1% | 5.6% |
| u | 1.4% | 9.1% | 5.1% | 3.0% | 0.3% |
| v | 1.9% | 0.5% | 1.9% | 1.1% | 0.0% |
| w | 3.4% | 1.1% | 1.8% | 1.0% | 0.5% |
| x | 0.2% | 0.5% | 1.0% | 0.1% | 0.5% |
| y | 1.1% | 1.9% | 1.4% | 0.7% | 10.4% |
| z | 0.6% | 0.2% | 1.0% | 0.7% | 0.2% |
How many words contain each letter
Share of everyday five-letter words that contain the letter at least once.
- e47%
- s43%
- a40%
- r35%
- o29%
- t28%
- i26%
- l25%
- n22%
- c19%
- d18%
- h17%
- u15%
- y14%
- p13%
- m12%
- b12%
- g11%
- k11%
- f9%
- w8%
- v6%
- j2%
- z1%
- x1%
- q1%
Starting words that test the most common letters
Five different letters, scored by how many everyday five-letter words share each letter. This is a simple coverage score, not a full game simulation, so treat it as a good first guess rather than the single best one.
- 1raise
- 2cares
- 3scare
- 4least
- 5steal
- 6store
- 7stare
- 8tears
- 9share
- 10loser
Try them in the Wordle solver, or search by position with the 5 letter word finder.
Method
Words come from ENABLE, the open word list behind every TileFinch tool (8,585 five-letter words after removing offensive words). “Everyday” words are the five-letter words among the 10,000 most frequent words in SUBTLEX-US, a count of American film and TV subtitles. Each word counts once; a letter that appears twice in a word counts twice in the position table and once in the “contains” chart. All numbers are produced by the same code that runs our tools. See our word list.
Download the data (CSV) Free to use with a link to this page.