Original SIXY research
What 3,000 six-letter words teach us
The SIXY Word Lab measures the patterns inside our curated answer pool. These are not dictionary-wide guesses: every figure below comes from the exact 3,000-word candidate set maintained for the daily game.
The headline findings
Six-letter words contain more repeated-letter structure than many players expect. In our September 2026 dataset, 1,521 of 3,000 words contain at least one repeated letter. That is 50.7% of the pool—slightly more than half. The repeat clue is therefore not a decorative exception; it addresses a pattern that can appear throughout the game.
Six letters do not behave evenly
Position changes probability. S is the most frequent first letter in the pool, appearing at the start of 378 words. A is the most frequent second letter, while I leads the fourth position. At the end, E and R dominate, followed by Y. A solver who knows only the overall frequency of a letter misses this positional information.
The distinction matters after a yellow clue. A yellow E is not equally likely to move into every open space, and a final-position hypothesis should be judged differently from a first-position hypothesis. The Word Lab does not turn a puzzle into arithmetic, but it explains why some placements feel more natural than others.
Explore the analyses
Each report uses the same frozen 3,000-word snapshot so its percentages can be checked against one another. We publish the method as well as the result, and we avoid listing the answer schedule itself.
How we calculated the figures
We counted the 3,000 unique uppercase entries in the maintained SIXY answer dataset as of September 22, 2026. For vowel counts, A, E, I, O, and U are vowels; Y is counted as a consonant so the rule stays consistent. Repeated-letter counts compare the six characters within each word. Position tables count one through six from left to right.
Figures describe the curated SIXY pool, not every six-letter word in English. The pool intentionally favors recognizable words and excludes many inflections, obscure terms, and entries judged unsuitable for a fair daily answer. Dataset curation therefore affects the result—and that is precisely why these statistics are useful for SIXY players.
What the numbers cannot tell you
Frequency is evidence, not certainty. A common final letter does not make a rare ending impossible. The current row’s green, yellow, gray, and pink clues always outrank a population-level pattern. These reports are best used to compare plausible choices after the board has already narrowed the field.
We will refresh this research when the curated pool changes materially and date the new snapshot. For the rules behind what can enter that pool, read the SIXY word standards. For practical play, continue to the strategy guide.