Words Ending With LA
100 wordsWords ending in LA bring a distinctly musical, often foreign flavor to English. This suffix appears in borrowings from Spanish, Italian, and Latin, giving us everything from culinary terms to scientific nomenclature. Here you'll find options ranging from quick two-letter plays to impressive thirteen-letter specimens.
2-letter words
13-letter words
14-letter words
135-letter words
176-letter words
187-letter words
278-letter words
109-letter words
510-letter words
712-letter words
1Pattern Guide
Insights and recommendations for these words.
The LA ending offers surprising versatility for word game enthusiasts, with high-value consonant combinations hiding in borrowed terms from Romance languages.
Vocabulary & Language
Linguistic patterns and usage statistics
The LA ending rarely occurs in native English words. Instead, it marks borrowed terms that retained their original spelling—paella from Spanish, gondola from Italian, formula from Latin. Many are feminine noun endings from these source languages, which explains why they cluster in specific domains: music (viola), food (mozzarella), and scientific terminology (nebula, maxilla).
Total Words
309
0.1% of dictionary
Avg Length
7.2 letters
3.1 syllables
Top Scrabble
MOZZARELLA
30 points
Longest Word
AMPHIBLASTULA
13 letters
Parts of Speech
This pattern produces exclusively nouns—100% of words ending in LA function as nouns. The average length of 7.2 letters reflects how these borrowed terms tend to be complete words from their source languages rather than built from English roots.
Latin dominates this pattern, with Spanish and Italian contributing significantly as well. The chain from paella traces through Catalan and Old French, showing how cooking terms traveled across Mediterranean cultures. Interestingly, mulla demonstrates the pattern also absorbed Arabic through Persian, proving LA endings crossed multiple linguistic boundaries on their way into English.
Word Games
High-value words for board games
Short (2-4)
the type genus of the Hylidae; tree toads
a Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad
Medium (5-7)
Hungarian hunting dog resembling the Weimaraner but having a rich deep red coat
Long (8+)
mild white Italian cheese
a herbivorous lizard that lives among rocks in the arid parts of southwestern United States and Mexico
Short (2-4)
the type genus of the Hylidae; tree toads
Medium (5-7)
Long (8+)
mild white Italian cheese
a herbivorous lizard that lives among rocks in the arid parts of southwestern United States and Mexico
MOZZARELLA tops both games but scores 33 points in Words With Friends versus 30 in Scrabble. The bigger story is Z-heavy words: ZILA scores slightly better in WWF (14 vs 13), while ZARZUELA holds steady at 26-28 points across both. HEXAPLA and EXEMPLA are medium-length workhorses, though EXEMPLA edges ahead in WWF at 21 points. The Hungarian hunting dog VIZSLA delivers 18 points in Scrabble with its Z placement.
Wordle
5-letter words for daily puzzles
Good Starters (E, A, R, S, T)
United States electrical engineer and inventor (born in Croatia but of Serbian descent) who discovered the principles of alternating currents and developed the first alternating-current induction motor and the Tesla coil and several forms of oscillators (1856-1943)
an ancient upright stone slab bearing markings
Common Words (likely answers)
a boy or man
Mexican revolutionary leader (1877-1923)
United States electrical engineer and inventor (born in Croatia but of Serbian descent) who discovered the principles of alternating currents and developed the first alternating-current induction motor and the Tesla coil and several forms of oscillators (1856-1943)
large genus of flowering herbs of temperate regions
TESLA and STELA both test common consonants T, S, and L while placing the crucial LA ending. SELLA covers the double-L possibility early, useful for narrowing down this pattern quickly.
Length Extremes
Longest and shortest valid words
Longest
Shortest
Short LA words are rare because English doesn't naturally produce this ending—even LA itself is borrowed. Longer words dominate because they're complete foreign terms adopted wholesale, like the thirteen-letter AMPHIBLASTULA from scientific Latin.
Hidden Gems
Rare but valid words to surprise opponents
any of numerous plants of the genus Gladiolus native chiefly to tropical and South Africa having sword-shaped leaves and one-sided spikes of brightly colored funnel-shaped flowers; widely cultivated
the jaw in vertebrates that is fused to the cranium
a Muslim trained in the doctrine and law of Islam; the head of a mosque
a short novel
MAXILLA refers to the upper jawbone in vertebrates, fused to the cranium. Beyond its anatomical precision, this Latin borrowing scores well with its X, and most opponents won't challenge a word that sounds too medical to be wrong. It's the kind of term that rewards players who venture beyond everyday vocabulary.
Popular crossword answers
Words frequently used in crossword puzzles with common clues.