5 Letter Words Starting With M

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

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

A real example from our word list: the answer is MIDST, and all you know is that it starts with M, which leaves 100 common words. Open with MATER, the guess that splits this set most evenly.

Guess 1: MATER M is green and T is yellow, and the rest are grey. That leaves 7 possible answers.

Guess 2: MONTH M is green and T is yellow, and the rest are grey. That leaves 1 possible answer.

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

What comes after M?

In common words that start with M, the second letter is most often O (31%), A (30%) and E (17%). 100% 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 M

M words almost always have a vowel in the second spot: magic, metal, minor, model and music. For Wordle, you can treat the second letter as a vowel and focus your guesses there. Many common M words end in -Y, like money, marry and mercy, and several double a letter in the middle, such as merry, messy and muddy. M is worth 3 points in Scrabble, and the highest-scoring M words pair it with Z or X, like maxim and mezzo.

M ranks seventh out of 26 as a first letter for 5 letter words.

Word families that start with M

M words are some of the most common in English, and nearly all have a vowel second. MA words include major, maker, march, match, maybe and mayor. ME words include medal, media, merit and meter. MI, MO and MU add month, moral, motor, mouse, mouth and movie. Endings worth knowing are -IC (magic, manic, mimic), -OR (major, manor, minor, motor) and -AL (medal, metal, moral). Several M words repeat the M, like madam, mummy and mommy. In Wordle, if M is green first, the second-spot vowel is the next thing to find. Try the Wordle solver to see which guess splits the list best.

Vowels in 5 letter words starting with M

E is the most common vowel here, appearing in 42% of the common words, followed by O (41%) and A (40%). The least common is U (16%).

22% have just one vowel, like might, march, month and match. At the other end, media, movie and mouse have three or more.

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

Nouns, verbs and adjectives

By main meaning (WordNet), there are 69 nouns, 18 adjectives, 9 verbs and 2 adverbs.

Nouns include might, money and music. Adjectives include major, moved and mixed. Verbs include march, match and mount. Adverbs include maybe and madly.

Best Wordle guesses that start with M

Top guesses, with the average number of the 100 common words each leaves: MATER (7.1), MINER (7.8), MEDIA (7.8), MERIT (7.9) and METRO (7.9).

31% repeat a letter, and 16 have a double letter, like marry, mommy, messy and molly.

Highest-scoring 5 letter words starting with M in Scrabble

Top common words: maxim (16), maize (16) and mixed (15). All valid words: muzzy (28), mizzy (28) and mezzo (25). 37 words reach 15 points or more.