5 letter words starting with J

The most-used 5 letter words starting with j, and what they mean

These are the 14 that come up most often in written English, so they are the ones worth knowing first.

james

nounOne of two Apostles, James the Greater and James the Less, often identified with James, brother of Jesus.

jesus

nounJesus of Nazareth, a first-century Jewish religious preacher and craftsman (commonly understood to have been a carpenter) from Galilee held to be a prophet…

japan

nounA country and archipelago of East Asia. Capital and largest city: Tokyo.

joint

noun(anatomy) Any part of an animalian body where two bones or exoskeleton segments are abutted, in most cases allowing that part of the body to be bent or straightened.

judge

nounA public official whose duty it is to administer the law, especially by presiding over trials and rendering judgments; a justice.

jones

nounAn English and Welsh surname originating as a patronymic derived from the given name John.

jacob

noun(biblical) One of the sons of Isaac and Rebecca, and twin brother of Esau; father of the Israelites (Jews and Samaritans) by 12 sons by 4 consorts, most famously…

juice

noun(uncountable) A liquid made from plant, especially fruit.

jimmy

nounA diminutive of the male given names James or Jim, also used as a formal given name.

jerry

nounA diminutive of the male given names Gerald, Gerard, Jeremy, Jeremiah, Jared, Jerome, Jermaine, Jerrold, or similar male given names.

johns

nounAn English surname originating as a patronymic derived from John.

julia

noun(computer languages) A programming language suited for numerical analysis and scientific computing.

joyce

nounAn English and Irish surname originating as a patronymic.

jason

noun(Greek mythology) The leader of the Argonauts, who retrieved the Golden Fleece from king Aeetes of Colchis, for his uncle Pelias.

Nouns, verbs and adjectives

Of the 282 words in this list, 244 can be used as a noun, including james, jesus, japan, joint, judge. Plenty of words do more than one job: state is a noun, a verb and an adjective depending on how you use it, which is why these numbers add up to more than the list itself.

Using this for Wordle

Puzzle answers lean heavily on everyday words rather than obscure ones, and this list is sorted by exactly that: how often each word actually turns up in written English. So start at the top. On this list that means james, jesus, japan, joint, judge, jones.

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How this list is built

The words come from the Datamuse language API, then get cleaned up, because the raw output is not much use on its own. Each word is checked against an English dictionary, with a frequency floor for anything not in it, so ordinary inflections survive while noise does not. Roman numerals, fragments and vowel-less abbreviations are stripped out.

What is left is ranked by how often each word actually appears in written English. That ordering is the point: it puts the words you might actually want at the top. The full method is on how we build these.

More 5 letter words by first letter