5 Letter Words Ending In S

3,959 words end in S. That's more than double the next biggest group.

But most of them are plurals. CARDS. BOOKS. TREES. Add an S to a four-letter word and you've made another entry on this 5 letter words list.

Wordle doesn't use those. So 5 letter words that end in S behave very differently from every other group.

One note on the count. Other sites quote 3,042 or 4,339 for the same thing. Each runs a different dictionary. Ours is computed from an open-source English dictionary.

Out of 2,315 real Wordle answers, just 36 end in S. That's 1.6%.

Now the number that matters. Of our 3,959 5 letter words ending in S, only 36 are real answers.

A 0.9% hit rate. Less than one in a hundred.

Compare that to E, where the hit rate is 27.9%. Or K, the best of all at 43.6%. S sits dead last.

This is the single biggest trap in the game. S looks like a safe bet because so many words end in it.

But Wordle's editors leave plurals out of the answer pool on purpose.

We checked. 3,608 of the 3,959 S-ending words are plurals, which is 91% of the group. Drop the S and you get a normal four-letter word.

That leaves just 351 words that genuinely end in S on their own.

Editor Tracy Bennett has confirmed plurals aren't used. Our 1.6% figure also matches the 1.7% reported independently by fiveletterwords.io.

So if you've locked a green S in the last slot, don't reach for the obvious plural. It won't be the answer.

The list is short enough to publish in full. Here is every single one.

ABYSS, AMASS, AMISS, BASIS, BLESS, BLISS, BONUS, BRASS, CHAOS, CHESS, CLASS, CRASS, CRESS, CROSS, DRESS, DROSS, ETHOS, FETUS, FICUS, FLOSS, FOCUS, GLASS, GLOSS, GRASS, GROSS, GUESS, HUMUS, LOCUS, LUPUS, MINUS, MUCUS, PRESS, REBUS, TORUS, TRUSS, VIRUS.

Look at the pattern. Almost none are plurals.

They're words that naturally end in S. Double-S words like GLASS and CROSS. Latin-rooted words like FOCUS, VIRUS, and LOCUS.

That's your real shortlist. If the last letter is S, these are the only 5 letter words for wordle worth testing.

Everyday Common Words

CHAOS. BONUS. FOCUS. GLASS. GRASS. PRESS. DRESS.

Common, easy to spell, and every one has been a real answer. Safe picks whether you're playing Wordle or Scrabble.

Strategic High-Value Picks (Scrabble / Words With Friends)

ZEZES tops the list at 23 points. ZAXES and ZEXES both hit 21.

WAQFS scores 20 and pulls off a rare trick, using a Q with no U anywhere near it.

Any scrabble word finder ranks these for you, and a words with friends cheat scores them a little differently. Run a word solver 5 letters wide and the Z words rise to the top.

Knowing two end letters cuts the work in half. Here's how S-ending words split by the letter before it.

ES leads with 726 words. Then TS with 387, AS with 292, KS with 274.

After that: LS 245, NS 223, DS 211, OS 206.

Worth knowing that ES, TS, KS, LS, NS and DS are almost entirely plurals. OS and US hold most of the real answers.

• Total words: 3,959 end in S
• Wordle answers: 36, or 1.6% of all answers
• Hit rate: 0.9%, the lowest of any ending
• Plurals: 3,608 of them, roughly 91%
• Top two-letter endings: ES 726, TS 387, AS 292, KS 274
• Highest scorer: ZEZES at 23 points

Scan 5 letter words in english a to z and nothing else comes close to this size.

All 3,959 words sit below. Real Wordle answers are marked, so the 36 that matter are easy to spot.

Use the word finder 5 letters at a time if you know another letter. Or scroll this 5 letter words list in full.

All 3,959 words sit below. Real Wordle answers are marked, so the 36 that matter are easy to spot. Use the word finder 5 letters at a time if you know another letter. Or scroll this 5 letter words list in full.