SIXY Word Lab
How common are repeated letters in six-letter words?
More than half of the curated SIXY answer pool repeats at least one letter. Here is what ‘repeat’ actually means inside 3,000 six-letter words.
One number changes the way you solve
There are 1,521 repeat-bearing words in the dataset and 1,479 words with six different letters. Put another way, selecting a random candidate from this pool is slightly more likely to produce a repeat than a no-repeat pattern. Assuming every answer uses six unique letters would therefore begin from the wrong side of the odds.
The full repeat-pattern breakdown
A pair is by far the most common form, but the pool also contains triples, double-pair structures, and a small number of denser arrangements. The categories below are mutually exclusive and total all 3,000 entries.
| Pattern | Words | Share |
|---|---|---|
| No repeated letter | 1,479 | 49.3% |
| One pair | 1,245 | 41.5% |
| Two pairs | 198 | 6.6% |
| One triple | 59 | 2.0% |
| One triple plus one pair | 15 | 0.5% |
| One letter used four times | 2 | 0.1% |
| Three separate pairs | 2 | 0.1% |
E is the repeat leader
E repeats in 393 of the 3,000 words, more than twice the count for any other letter. R follows at 170 words, then A at 166, T at 137, O at 123, and L at 118. These figures count words in which the letter appears more than once; they do not count how many total copies occur.
Read all copies of a letter together. If a guess gets one green E and one gray E, the gray copy is surplus: the answer has one E, not zero. If a matching E has a pink badge, the guess has fewer E’s than the answer needs. Overall E frequency cannot override either clue.
Recognize the patterns in completed puzzles
These examples all appeared in puzzles 1–47. “Repeated” does not mean the copies must touch.
| Completed answer | Count it | Pattern |
|---|---|---|
| STARCH · #1 | Six different letters | No repeat |
| COFFIN · #2 | Two F’s next to each other | One pair |
| DINING · #8 | Two I’s and two N’s, separated | Two pairs |
| REVERE · #41 | Three E’s and two R’s | Triple plus pair |
Against the completed answer REVERE, a guess of REBUKE supplies two E’s and one R. It needs one more of each: the first matching E gets +1 and the matching R gets +1. The second E does not get another badge. See the worked REVERE board for the positions and deductions.
Why SIXY shows +1 or +2
The pink marker communicates a remaining quantity, not a new color grade. If the submitted guess contains one copy but the answer requires two, +1 says another copy remains to be placed. If the guess contains two while the answer requires four, +2 says two more remain. The underlying green or yellow still explains position.
At most one pink badge appears per letter in a row, on its first matching tile, only when more copies are needed. Once a new row supplies the full quantity, that row has no pink badge for the letter. Previous rows keep their original clues. See the complete badge rules.
A practical use of the data
Do not force repeats into an opening guess merely because the overall rate is high; early coverage still has value. Instead, stop treating repetition as an unlikely fallback. When a promising pattern seems one letter short, test whether an already-discovered letter belongs twice before discarding the pattern.
For the wider dataset method, return to the Word Lab overview. To see how repeated vowels interact with the count, read the vowel analysis.