Words Ending in G

13,592 Words Ending in G — The -ING Engine and Beyond

The G-ending group is the biggest in the English dictionary, barely edging out words ending in Y. The -ING suffix does most of the heavy lifting — RUNNING, MAKING, PLAYING, BUILDING, and thousands more verb forms inflate this count to massive proportions. But strip away the -ING words and you still have a fascinating collection. BIG, BUG, DIG, DOG, EGG, FIG, FOG, GAG, GIG, HOG, HUG, JIG, JUG, KEG, LAG, LEG, LOG, MUG, NAG, NUG, PEG, PIG, PUG, RAG, RIG, RUG, SAG, TAG, TUG, WAG, WIG, ZAG, ZIG. That run of punchy three-letter words is one of the densest in English — and every single one is useful in Scrabble.

A fact that changes how you think about G-endings: in English spelling, a word never ends in a single G after a short vowel. BIG, not BI-G. DIG, PIG, MUG, RUG — these all look like exceptions, but they're actually following the rule because the G is doing double duty as both the final consonant and the marker that the preceding vowel is short. When the vowel IS long, English adds a silent E: HUGE, CAGE, PAGE. This pattern helps in crosswords: if the vowel before the final G sounds short, there's no silent E hiding there. For Scrabble, the three-letter G-enders listed above are parallel-play workhorses. JIG and JUG both score 11 points, and ZAG scores a satisfying 13. One tip for advanced players: adding -ING to a verb on the board is an obvious extension, but adding -ING to create a gerund noun (turning SWIM on the board into SWIMMING) is trickier because it requires doubling the final consonant. Know which verbs double and which don't. See words ending in C for the -IC suffix group, words starting with Z for high-value plays like ZAG and ZIG, and words starting with K for borrowed words that combine well with G-endings.

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