5 letter words containing S
Every five-letter word in the list that contains S — 3,988 of them, printed below. The contains box is already set to S; add a pattern or the letters you have ruled out to cut it down.
Five-letter words that contain S, counted
There are 3,988 of them here, which makes S the first most common letter inside a five-letter word in this list. That is a different ranking from S as an opener: a letter can be rare at the front and common in the middle.
1,053 of them start with S; the other 2,935 have it later. The square it occupies most often is the fifth (2,682 of them). 499 use S more than once.
On standard Scrabble tiles the most expensive are ZAXES (21), JUJUS (19), QOPHS (19). A high score here still means rare letters, not a good first guess — and a yellow S in a puzzle is a placement problem, not a "start with S" problem.
What a yellow S actually tells you
S anywhere is the largest contains-page, because S opens words, pluralises them and sits in ST- / SP- clusters. A yellow S that is not a plural ending is the list people actually need, and it is much shorter than this page as a whole.
2,677 of them use five different letters (ABETS, ABLES, ABRIS and ABUSE). 480 of them contain a doubled letter (ABBAS, ABBES, ABYSS and AKEES). The no-repeat words are the ones that test five letters for the price of one.
157 of them carry three or more vowels (ABASE, ABUSE, ADIOS and AEDES). Those are the ones to reach for when the letters you have left are mostly vowels. 20 of them manage without A, E, I, O or U (BYRLS, CYSTS, GYPSY and HYMNS).
Using a contains-S list in a puzzle
A yellow tile is not a green tile. These 3,988 candidates have S somewhere; they do not have it locked. Put the squares you have already ruled out into the pattern as dots you then exclude by hand, or type the other confirmed letters into their positions and leave S free.
The opening-S list is a different page — only 1,053 five-letter words start with S. The second-letter list is different again: 65 have S locked in square two. This URL is the one that matches "contains S" / "with a S in them".
Alphabetically the list here runs from ABASE to ZYMES. Every word on it comes from the same public-domain list the search box queries, so nothing printed here is a word the tool will then refuse to find.
Highest scoring five-letter words that contain S
Standard Scrabble tile values for words that have S somewhere, not only those that open with it. Rare letters still dominate the top of the table.
| Word | Points |
|---|---|
ZAXES | 21 |
JUJUS | 19 |
QOPHS | 19 |
ZYMES | 19 |
JACKS | 18 |
JIFFS | 18 |
JOCKS | 18 |
ZERKS | 18 |
ZONKS | 18 |
ZOOKS | 18 |
Which square S occupies
How often S sits in each of the five positions, counted across all 3,988 words. A letter that is common in the middle and rare at the end is a placement clue, not just a count.
| Position | Words | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,053 | SABED, SABER, SABES |
| 2 | 65 | ASANA, ASCOT, ASCUS |
| 3 | 340 | AISLE, ANSAE, APSES |
| 4 | 354 | ABASE, ABASH, ABUSE |
| 5 | 2,682 | ABBAS, ABBES, ABETS |
Common questions
How many 5 letter words contain S?
3,988 in the list used here, which is every five-letter word in the public-domain ENABLE dictionary that includes S, apart from a short blocklist of slurs. Sites using a different dictionary will quote a different number.
Which 5 letter word containing S scores highest?
ZAXES, at 21 points on standard Scrabble tiles, ahead of JUJUS at 19. Words With Friends values several letters differently, so the order there is not the same.
Do most 5 letter words containing S start with it?
No. 1,053 of the 3,988 open with S; 2,935 have it in another square. That is why a yellow S is a different page from "starts with S".
Every word, grouped by how long it is
The complete list at each length. Three letters is a page you memorise; nine is a page you search.
Five-letter words by opening letter
The complete list for each letter, with how many there are. S is a page you scroll; X is a page you read.
- A 497
- B 589
- C 662
- D 455
- E 192
- F 429
- G 414
- H 334
- I 118
- J 133
- K 205
- L 401
- M 443
- N 200
- O 181
- P 565
- Q 53
- R 419
- S 1,053
- T 547
- U 117
- V 161
- W 295
- X 13
- Y 94
- Z 51
Five-letter words by second letter
The same length, a different known square. A is the large page; J is the short one.
- A 1,478
- B 53
- C 122
- D 58
- E 1,063
- F 14
- G 49
- H 377
- I 963
- J 7
- K 55
- L 508
- M 116
- N 239
- O 1,333
- P 150
- Q 12
- R 645
- S 65
- T 166
- U 789
- V 39
- W 97
- X 44
- Y 164
- Z 15
Five-letter words by a letter they contain
A yellow tile, not a green one. E is in most of them; Q and J are the short pages.
- A 3,493
- B 967
- C 1,367
- D 1,566
- E 3,878
- F 689
- G 1,003
- H 1,145
- I 2,423
- J 170
- K 879
- L 2,166
- M 1,220
- N 1,846
- O 2,529
- P 1,275
- Q 75
- R 2,669
- S 3,988
- T 2,082
- U 1,593
- V 455
- W 673
- X 202
- Y 1,321
- Z 211