Words Ending in ER

-ER finishes 3,259 WyldTyle words of four to seven letters: people who do things (BAKER, TRADER), comparisons (BIGGER, YUCKIER), and plenty of plain nouns (WATER, WINTER). Both letters are worth 1 point and both come up often, which makes -ER one of the easiest endings to complete on a long slot.

Why -ER is easy to land

R has three faces on the thirty-face consonant die, the same as N and S, and only T has more. E has three of the vowel die's ten. Over a typical game you can expect two or three Rs and around four Es. That is why -ER suits a slot you need to finish rather than one you want to score big on: it rarely leaves you stuck waiting for a letter.

The flip side is that -ER adds just 2 points. The word's score comes from the letters in front of it, so put your higher-value letters in the front half: BUMPER, KICKER, and PUCKER are 16 or 17 points because of the B, P, K, and C, not the ending.

• Place the R last, then build in front. Nearly nine in ten seven-letter words that end in R end in -ER, so the E will usually follow and the first five squares stay open.
• An E in the second-to-last square keeps -ER and -ED open together. Whichever of R or D comes first decides it. See the -ED list for the other half.
• Know -IER. Hundreds of seven-letter words end -IER (BUMPIER, KICKIER, MUDDIER). If you have an I to place and the seven-letter word reads _ _ _ _ _ E R, the fifth square may want it.
• -ERS is the seven-letter extension. Most six-letter -ER nouns take an S and fill the seven-letter slot: TRADERS, WINTERS, DEALERS. Comparatives don't: there is no BIGGERS. Over a thousand seven-letter words end -ERS.

The highest-scoring -ER words

The forty highest scorers at any length. CHUKKER and KAYAKER top the list at 20 points. Further down, words like BUMPER, KIPPER, and BICKER are realistic targets when a B, K, or P lands early.

The small number after each word is its WyldTyle score with no wild tiles. Letter values are on the scoring guide.

• CHUKKER20
• KAYAKER20
• BLUBBER19
• BUBBLER19
• BUCKLER19
• FLIVVER19
• KICKIER19
• PLUCKER19
• POPOVER19
• YUCKIER19
• BABBLER18
• BLABBER18
• BLACKER18
• BLOCKER18
• BOUVIER18
• BULKIER18
• BUMBLER18
• BUMPIER18
• CLUBBER18
• CUPPIER18
• FLUBBER18
• FLYOVER18
• KNACKER18
• KNAPPER18
• KNOCKER18
• KOOKIER18
• LOBBYER18
• MUCKIER18
• PAPPIER18
• PAWKIER18
• PICKIER18
• PLUMBER18
• PLUMPER18
• POCKIER18
• SKIPPER18
• SKULKER18
• VIVIDER18
• VOYAGER18
• VUGGIER18
• YAKKER18

-ER words by length

The best -ER words for each slot length, highest scoring first. Where a length has more than sixty, only the top sixty are shown; the count beside each heading is the full total.

Cheap endings win games

Most WyldTyle boards are won or lost on whether every slot ends up valid, not on one big word. All eight valid earns the 20-point Wyld Pyle bonus, more than any single -ER word is worth. An ending made of two common, one-point letters is exactly what keeps a slot from going invalid. The one-point word list takes the same idea further, and the word endings guide compares every common ending at each length.