5 Letter Words Starting With L

How to find a five-letter word that starts with an L

Looking for 5 letter words that start with L to solve a Wordle? The finder above already has L in the first green box; add your other clues.

A real example from our word list: the answer is LIVER, and all you know is that it starts with L, which leaves 76 common words. Open with LAYER, the guess that splits this set most evenly.

Guess 1: LAYER L, E and R are green, and the rest are grey. That leaves 8 possible answers.

Guess 2: LOVER L, V, E and R are green, and the rest are grey. That leaves 2 possible answers: liver and lever.

Guess 3: LIVER All five letters are green. Solved in 3.

What comes after L?

In common words that start with L, the second letter is most often O (25%), A (21%) and E (21%). 95% have a vowel second, so if your consonant guesses keep missing, try A, E, I, O or U in the second spot.

About 5 letter words starting with L

English has almost no words that start with L plus another consonant, so nearly every L word has a vowel second: laugh, level, light, loyal, lunch. The one exception you're likely to see is LL in borrowed words like llama. That makes the second spot easy to narrow down: if your first guess rules out A and E, the answer probably has I, O or U second. L words often end in -ER, -AL or -EL, as in layer, legal and label, so it's worth testing those endings once the first two letters are known.

L ranks 12 out of 26 as a first letter for 5 letter words.

Word families that start with L

L words almost always have a vowel second. LA words include labor, large, laser and later. LE words include learn, least, leave and lemon. LI words include limit, liver and lived. LO words include lobby, local, lodge, logic, loose and lower. -ER is the most common ending, as in later, laser, lower and lover, so if L is first and you have an E and R left over, try them at the end. L words also often contain a second L, as in label and local. For more L words by position, see 5 letter words with L.

Vowels in 5 letter words starting with L

E is the most common vowel here, appearing in 59% of the common words, followed by A (39%) and O (32%). The least common is U (13%).

14% have just one vowel, like light, lucky, lying and lunch. At the other end, leave, loose and lease have three or more.

A few have no A, E, I, O or U at all, because Y does the vowel's job: lynch and lymph.

Nouns, verbs and adjectives

By main meaning (WordNet), there are 47 nouns, 20 adjectives, 7 verbs and 1 adverb.

Nouns include level, light and labor. Adjectives include least, local and large. Verbs include leave, learn and lower. Adverbs include later.

Best Wordle guesses that start with L

Top guesses, with the average number of the 76 common words each leaves: LAYER (6.2), LANCE (6.3), LATER (6.5), LEARN (6.5) and LADEN (6.8).

30% repeat a letter, and 6 have a double letter, like loose, lobby, latte and lotto.

Highest-scoring 5 letter words starting with L in Scrabble

Top common words: lymph (15), lucky (14) and lynch (13). All valid words: lazzo (23), lazzi (23) and lezza (23). 6 words reach 15 points or more.