5 Letter Words Ends with W

Letters in the open positions

Looking at the fourth letter, “O” (42, 42%), “E” (33, 33%), “A” (19, 19%), “U” (3, 3%) appear most often. This measures the character immediately before the final letter, rather than the word's first internal letter. Percentages use all 100 matching words as the denominator.

Words ending in W almost always finish in OW, EW or AW, which gives BELOW, THREW and STRAW. Use the patterns below to guess faster in Wordle, Scrabble and other word games. It also helps to see the words grouped by ending, because the same few patterns keep returning.

Endings Worth Knowing

A handful of endings do most of the work. The OW ending gives BELOW, ALLOW and ARROW; the EW ending gives THREW, SCREW and SHREW; the AW ending gives STRAW. Learning them lets you jump from the last letter to a short list of likely words.

Useful five-letter words

Start with BELOW, ALLOW, THROW, THREW and SCREW. Each one is common enough to appear in everyday writing, which makes it a safe test. ARROW, WIDOW and STRAW are worth keeping in reserve.

• BELOW
• ALLOW
• THROW
• THREW
• SCREW

How to Narrow Down Words Ending in W

Every word in this group has a vowel in the fourth box, so a vowel there is a safe first test. O is the strongest, followed by E and A. With the ending settled, the first two boxes are where the remaining choices are made.

Playing W Words in Scrabble

In Scrabble, W is worth four points, so it is a valuable tile, and placing it on a premium square can make a real difference. Many players keep a few W words in mind, such as BELOW, ALLOW and THROW, so they can use the tile quickly when it arrives.

Common starting letters in words ending in W

The most frequent starting letter is S, appearing in 16 words (16%). This shows how the words sharing the W ending are distributed across different beginnings.