5-Letter Words Ending in Y
Y closes 906 five-letter words. It is the third most common ending, and the most misunderstood.
906 five-letter words end in Y, putting it behind only S and E. What sets it apart is that a terminal Y is almost always doing the work of a vowel, which changes how you should count the rest of the word.
A word like DUSTY looks to a strict reading like it holds one vowel. To the ear it holds two. If you are filtering by vowel count, a final Y is the single most common source of a wrong answer.
The -LY group
The largest cluster here ends in -LY: BADLY, DRYLY, ONLY's longer relatives. Adverbs formed from three-letter adjectives land in this length constantly, which is why L is by far the most likely letter in position four when Y closes the word.
If you have a confirmed Y at the end and L is still live, test it before anything else.
The -TY and -RY groups
After -LY, the two next largest are -TY and -RY. Between the three of them they account for most of this list, which means a confirmed final Y plus a ruled-out L, T and R collapses the field to something small enough to read.
That is an unusually sharp cut for two pieces of information, and it is why a final Y is worth more than its frequency suggests.
Words with no other vowel
A meaningful sub-group here contains no A, E, I, O or U at all — words like CRYPT's cousins, where Y is the only vowel sound present. Those are the words most players never think of, and they are exactly the ones that survive when a grid has ruled out every real vowel.
They also make a final Y a much better bet than it first appears when your vowels have all come back grey.
Reading the list
Scan with your browser's find function for a pattern you already have, or enter your full set of constraints into the solver, which applies fixed positions, required letters and exclusions to the whole list at once.
This page is for seeing the shape. The tool is for getting the answer.
About the list
Five-letter words ending in Y, from the standard 8,636-word list used across this site, including uncommon entries as well as everyday ones.