Rare 5 Letter Word Endings: J, Q and V

Here are all 11. These are the rarest 5 letter words in the language by ending, and the full set fits in three lines.

Ending in J: AFLAJ, BASIJ, FALAJ.

Ending in Q: QAJAQ, TALAQ, TRANQ, UMIAQ.

Ending in V: GANEV, OLLAV, PAREV, SCHAV.

That's the whole 5 letter words list. No hidden extras.

All 11 words sit below, across all three letters. None has ever been a Wordle answer, so nothing is marked.

This isn't random. English has a spelling habit that blocks these letters at the end of a word.

Take V. English almost never lets a word finish on it. Instead it tacks on a silent E. Think HAVE, LOVE, GIVE, MOVE. The E does nothing to the sound. It's there so the V isn't last.

Our data shows it plainly. 90 five letter words end in VE. Only 4 end in a bare V.

J works the same way. English uses GE instead, as in LARGE or JUDGE. 94 words end in GE, and just 3 end in J.

Q barely appears without a U in front of a vowel, so a final Q is rarer still.

Almost all 11 are borrowed from other languages. That's the only way they got past the spelling rule.

AFLAJ and FALAJ come from Arabic. A falaj is a traditional irrigation channel used in Oman and the UAE. Aflaj is the plural.

BASIJ is Persian, the name of an Iranian volunteer militia. QAJAQ and UMIAQ are Inuit, where QAJAQ is another spelling of kayak and an UMIAQ is a larger open boat.

TALAQ is Arabic, a form of divorce declaration in Islamic law.

TRANQ is the odd one out. It's just short for tranquilizer, clipped from English itself.

GANEV is Yiddish for a thief. SCHAV is a cold sorrel soup. PAREV describes food that is neither meat nor dairy.

OLLAV comes from Irish, an old word for a learned man or sage.

Now the practical bit. If you've got a green tile in the last slot showing J, Q or V, stop guessing.

It won't be the answer. None of these 11 words sit in the wordle answers pool, and none ever have. Misread tile, most likely.

That's genuinely useful. It's one of the few times a clue tells you the puzzle is broken rather than hard.

These words are useless in Wordle but handy on a Scrabble board.

QAJAQ scores 30 points. Two Q tiles at 10 each, and it's the highest of the group by a wide margin. UMIAQ takes 16, AFLAJ and FALAJ 15 each, BASIJ and TALAQ 14, TRANQ 14.

The V words score low. SCHAV 13, PAREV 10, GANEV 9, OLLAV 8.

Any scrabble word finder will surface them if you type in the letters. Keep QAJAQ in mind if a Q ever strands you.

J, Q and V are the extremes, but a few other endings are thin too.

Z has 32 words and only 4 Wordle answers. U is stranger still, with 67 words but exactly one answer in the entire history of the game.

X has 70 words and 8 answers. B has 59 words and 11 answers. W has 64 and 17.

Compare that to E, with 1,522 words and 424 answers. The gap is enormous, and it changes how you should read a last-letter clue.

So among 5 letter words in english, the last letter tells you far more than most players realise.

Looking for endings that actually help? Try 5 letter words ending in e, easily the strongest group for Wordle.

You can also browse 5 letter words starting with any letter, or 5 letter words containing a letter you already know. Or head back to the 5 letter word finder and filter by whatever the board has given you.