5 Letter Words Starting With B

How to find a five-letter word that starts with a B

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

A real example from our word list: the answer is BLESS, and all you know is that it starts with B, which leaves 136 common words. Open with BRINE, the guess that splits this set most evenly.

Guess 1: BRINE B is green and E is yellow, and the rest are grey. That leaves 16 possible answers.

Guess 2: BASED B is green and S and E are yellow, and the rest are grey. That leaves 1 possible answer.

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

What comes after B?

In common words that start with B, the second letter is most often R (24%), L (19%) and A (15%). 57% 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 B

Most B words follow the B with a vowel or with L or R. BL gives you black, blame, blind and blood; BR gives you brain, bread, bring and brown. Those two pairs alone cover a big share of the common list, so if you know the word starts with B and the second letter isn't a vowel, L and R are the first letters to test. B words also tend to end in -CH or -ST: beach, bench, boost and burst. You'll rarely see B followed by any consonant other than L, R or (in a handful of words) Y, as in bylaw. For Wordle, guesses that test L and R in the second spot, like blare or broil, split this list quickly.

Only two letters start more 5 letter words than B.

Word families that start with B

B words fall into three clear families. BR words are the largest: brave, brick, bride, brief and brush. BL words come next: blade, blank, blast and block. The third group has a vowel second, like badge, birth, bonus and buddy. Endings to watch for are -CH (beach, bench, bunch), -ND (blind, blend, bound) and -ST (blast, boost, burst). Double letters are common too: buddy, belly, berry, bobby and bless. If you're teaching phonics, B words are a good way to practise blends, because BL and BR are so easy to hear. Compare them with words ending in B, which are far rarer.

Vowels in 5 letter words starting with B

E is the most common vowel here, appearing in 43% of the common words, followed by A (34%) and O (29%). The least common is U (19%).

38% have just one vowel, like black, bring, brown and block. At the other end, booze, beige and bayou have three or more.

Nouns, verbs and adjectives

By main meaning (WordNet), there are 86 nouns, 26 adjectives, 21 verbs and 2 adverbs.

Nouns include being, board and blood. Adjectives include based, black and built. Verbs include bring, break and build. Adverbs include below and badly.

Best Wordle guesses that start with B

Top guesses, with the average number of the 136 common words each leaves: BRINE (10.1), BARON (10.5), BLADE (11.1), BRENT (11.2) and BORED (11.3).

27% repeat a letter, and 30 have a double letter, like blood, boost, buddy and billy.

Highest-scoring 5 letter words starting with B in Scrabble

Top common words: blaze (16), booze (16) and blitz (16). All valid words: buzzy (28), bizzy (28) and bizzo (25). 39 words reach 15 points or more.