6-Letter Words: Common Lists and the Stems That Lead to Bingos

Six-letter words sit in an interesting spot. In crosswords and word searches they're everyday answers. In Scrabble, they're something more: the launch pad for a seven-letter bingo, which earns a 50-point bonus. A player who knows which six-letter combinations "take" the most extra letters will find far more bingos than one who doesn't.

Our dictionary contains 22,418 six-letter words, about 3,500 of them in common use. This guide gives you a quick-reference list of everyday words, then the stems that experienced players treasure.

Common six-letter words by starting letter

What makes a great bingo stem

A stem is a group of six letters that combines with many different seventh letters to make a seven-letter word. The best stems share a few features:

• They contain the most common letters in English: E, A, I, R, S, T, N, L.
• They mix vowels and consonants evenly (usually three of each).
• They don't contain duplicate letters, which reduce flexibility.

We tested every common six-letter word in our dictionary to see how many of the 26 letters could be added to make a valid seven-letter word. These came out on top:

TASSEL tops the list despite its double S, because an extra S is so easy to absorb into English words. That's the exception: most duplicates hurt.

Notice also that several rows are anagrams of each other. That's the key insight: you don't need to memorise words, you need to memorise letter sets. Once you know that A, E, L, R, S, T is a powerful set, you'll recognise it whether it appears as ALTERS, SLATER or any other arrangement.

The famous stem: TISANE

Club players often learn a handful of classic stems first. One of the best known is TISANE (a herbal tea), made of six very common letters: A, E, I, N, S, T. In our dictionary, it forms a seven-letter word with 24 different extra letters. A few examples:

In our dictionary, only two letters fail to make a seven-letter word with TISANE: Q and Y. Even awkward letters like J (TAJINES), X (SEXTAIN) and Z (ZANIEST) work, which is exactly why TISANE is considered such a valuable combination. If you hold A, E, I, N, S, T plus almost anything, look hard for a bingo.

How to use this in a game

1. Keep good letters. If you can make a play that leaves you holding something like A, E, I, R, S, T, it's often worth scoring a bit less now to keep that combination for next turn.
2. Don't hold duplicates. Two Is or two Us make bingos much harder. Play duplicates off early.
3. Check with a tool afterwards. After a game, type your racks into the unscrambler and see what seven-letter words you missed. It's the fastest way to learn.

Related reading

• 7-letter bingo words: the next step up.
• Unscramble with blank tiles: how a blank turns a six-letter stem into a bingo.
• 5-letter words list