Have you run out of words that start with X? Are you still looking for the answer to the question, which letter starts the fewest words in the English language? Despite the number of words starting with the letter X in the Oxford English Dictionary, you might want to stop. To complete your list, here are a few more words: xenization, xenagogy, xenial.
Know More About Which Letter Starts The Fewest Words
Name five words that begin with the letter L: lollipops, laziness, language, labrador… and on and on. Name three words that begin with the letter B: black, ball, balloon
Now, try naming five words that start with the letter X. Xylophone, X-ray…not so easy, right? Find out the one letter that does not appear in any state name in the U.S.
Are you still trying to think of more words that start with X? Considering how few words start with the letter X in the Oxford English Dictionary, you might want to stop.
Xenization, xenagogy, and xenial are three more words to complete your list. It is much easier to show an ABC placemat for kindergarteners showing a xylophone than to show xenization, meaning travel with strangers.
It is interesting to note that Noah Webster published his Compendious Dictionary in 1806 with only one word under the letter X: xebec (a small, three-masted vessel in the Mediterranean).
His American Dictionary followed in 1828 with 13 words under the letter X. We now have around 400 words beginning with the letter X.
What letter do the Least Amount of Words start with?
Your definition of rarity will determine whether it is rare. In everyday English, you might agree to J, X, and Z as the least used letters. The least common words in dictionaries are J, Q, and Z, but some of the words are rarely used.
Which Letter has the highest Number of Words?
The number of English words beginning with each letter in descending order
Letter “O”
There are more than 7800 words in English Dictionary starting with the letter “O”
Letter “F”
There are more than 7100 words in English Dictionary starting with the letter “F”
Letter “G”
There are more than 6900 words in English Dictionary starting with the letter “G”
Letter “N”
There are more than 6700 words in English Dictionary starting with the letter “N”
Many languages in the world contain letters which starts the fewest words in that language even some hardest languages to learn have the same.
Why Know Which Letter Starts The Fewest Words
In the English language, there has always been a debate about letter that starts from the fewest words. There are opinions as to whether 1,000 and apple make up the letter A, and zero makes up the letter Z.
The dispute dates back to at least 1886, but there is no clear winner. The case that seems more likely is evident when you look closely at these examples.
Conwords begin with vowels most of the time, while prowords begin with consonants. The two sounds listed above are only two types, but there are about six other possibilities, depending on where the word was originally spelled or spoken.
When a word starts with that letter, the words that are arguments can’t be sure. It is impossible to trace the first speaker or writer of a new word because there are countless others in the English language. Therefore, every argument possesses a loophole that allows the other side to slip through.
The result is that you cannot say which letter starts every word in English, but you can take a look at the probability of each one happening.
Because this argument is never going to be resolved, you might as well try another measure of how likely one side is…census numbers.
Since there are a lot more words with vowel sounds in them and most pro-word words begin with consonant sounds, arguments that begin with a vowel sound are more likely to be true.
The pro side of an argument will likely be more accurate since many more words start with consonants than with vowels, and the con side starts most words with vowels.
Considering this is the way we play the numbers game, I will use numbers for my results. So that you can easily compare what I find with how you think each case fits your opinion, I will only use cases where both arguments were written or spoken in England.
I will explain a special case that shows why the previous reasoning does not always stand up as we go through the reasoning. In this case, we will look at some numbers to see which side is winning.
No matter whether the first or last word in both arguments begins with consonants or vowels, we will only examine the first letter in each word.
I think the most important number I am going to mention is ZERO. Because ZERO involves two zeros, it is even cooler. ZERO and zeros are the same thing.
Thus, ZERO has two consonants like the word start. If you counted the number of letters in ZERO instead of whether or not it starts with a vowel sound, it would have more consonants than the combined number of letters in A, C, D, E, G, H, O, and U.
It is even across the board when counting how many words begin with vowel or consonant sounds. Let’s turn now to the apple word. The example of Apple will illustrate why all of this wouldn’t count.
I also have four letters, the same as apple. Although, Apple is not true if we were counting only words that start with vowel sounds. Almost every word starts with a vowel, and almost every word starts with a consonant.
We should not forget another great word, banana, to be sure we haven’t missed anything. There are 3 letters in banana, which are also in B and ELLO.
Conclusion
The letter X starts with the fewest words in the English language.
Hey my name is Logan Jackson and I’m the founder of The Different Languages blog. I have years of experience in digital marketing and in content writing as well.