Vowel-Consonant Words: A Cheat Sheet for Word Lovers

VC isn’t just Venture Capital. In word games, it’s your most valuable asset: Vowel–Consonant words.

If you’ve been playing Fluxis, The Atlantic’s clever new word game, you know it’s part riddle, part letter-pattern recognition. Each daily puzzle asks you to build a closed loop of words, where every entry picks up from the last letter of the one before. Sounds simple enough until you hit the twist. Every day, the loop must follow three specific rules, and some of them are trickier than others.

“Nouns” or “Exactly X Letters” are pretty straightforward to get with a word unscrambler tool. But then come the ones that really stretch your word-making skills:

• Double Letters
• Alphabetical Order
• Alternating Vowel–Consonant

It’s that last one,  the VC (or CV) pattern, that deeply links Fluxis with a whole world of other word games. Wordle has thrown curveballs with entries like PAPAL, HAVOC, PARER, and KAYAK. Scrabble players rely on balanced VC words to balance their racks and build bridges. And even the New York Times Crossword recently pulled off a construction marvel: an entire 15x15 grid where every single entry alternated consonants and vowels.

In other words, VC words aren’t just a Fluxis quirk,  they’re a universal puzzle skill worth mastering.

The A–Z of Vowel–Consonant Words

Ready for the good stuff? Here’s your one-stop cheat sheet of vowel–consonant (VC) words, organized from A to Z. Some of these are crossword staples you’ve seen a hundred times (ERA, ENO, ORE). Others are Wordle stumpers that tripped up even seasoned solvers (PAPAL, HAVOC, PARER, KAYAK). And quite a few are Scrabble lifesavers, especially the short, high-value plays (QI, ZA, ZAX, TAX).

Whether you’re looping words in Fluxis, filling a crossword grid, or chasing a high-scoring move, these VC words are worth keeping handy.

VC Word Hacks: How to Make Them Stick

Memorizing long lists of vowel–consonant words can feel like training for a spelling bee. But it doesn’t have to be dry. If you group words by patterns and play with their sounds, you’ll find they’re surprisingly easy and fun to remember. Here are three tricks we swear by:

Categorize to Memorize

One of the simplest ways to memorize VC words is to file them by category. Suddenly, they’re not just random strings, but things you know and picture.

• Animals: PUMA, TAPIR, LEMUR, RAVEN
• Fruits: KIWI, PAPAYA, TOMATO, BANANA
• Body parts: EYE, LEG, LIP, NOSE
• Everyday Objects: AXE, HAT, BAG, KEY, ROD, PEN

Reduplication

When in doubt, repeat yourself. Reduplicated words are natural VC (or rather CV) patterns, and because they mimic baby talk or simple sounds, they’re instantly memorable.

• MAMA
• PAPA
• DADA
• TATA
• NANA
• COCO
• TUTU

Palindromic Words

Palindromes are not just fun party tricks, many of them are perfect VC models. Their symmetry makes them easy to recognize and hard to forget.

3 letters (C V C)

• M O M
• D A D
• P O P
• N U N

5 letters (C V C V C)

• C I V I C
• R A D A R
• R O T O R
• L E V E L
• M A D A M
• R E F E R
• T E N E T
• M I N I M
• S A G A S
• K A Y A K

7 letters (C V C V C V C)

• R A C E C A R
• R E V I V E R
• R E P A P E R
• R O T A T O R

These words are crossword darlings (short, vowel-rich, and grid-friendly) and occasionally sneak into Wordle (of course, the 5-letter ones)  or Connections. Once you’ve seen them, you’ll never un-see them.

One Word, Many Games

Here’s the fun part: the same VC words that trip you up in Fluxis are also power players elsewhere. Once you learn them, they’ll keep paying off across puzzles.

Scrabble Weapons

Some VC words are short but mighty. Two-letter gems like ZA, QI, and XI can save a bad rack, while high-scoring ones with Z, Q, or X (ZAX, ZEX, QAT, VEX, NIX) are worth memorizing for those bonus-square strikes.

Crossword Staples

Constructors love short, vowel-heavy entries, so VC patterns show up constantly in grids. Think of ENO, ONO, ALA, ORE, ETAL, EDAM, ARAL, OTIS, YOK and so on. If you solve crosswords, these are must-knows. 

On Wednesday, September 9, 2025, while I was working on this article, the New York Times Crossword featured a jaw-dropping puzzle where every single entry alternated consonant–vowel–consonant–vowel from corner to corner. The revealer was VOWEL, a playful nod to Wheel of Fortune’s “buy a vowel,” but here the gimmick was far more ambitious. Pulling off that constraint across a full 15×15 grid (with four long 15-letter theme entries and smooth fill throughout) was a genuine construction feat. It shows just how powerful and surprisingly flexible the vowel–consonant rhythm can be in wordplay.

Wordle Curveballs

Wordle has surprised solvers with tricky five-letter VC words like PAPAL, KAYAK, PARER, all with high hint heat (a measure of how much users searched for help on those days). Worth banking if you like to test your Wordle skills.

Palindrome Power

Words like CIVIC, KAYAK, RADAR, ROTOR, TENET aren’t just fun to say. They’re also handy for burning off duplicate letters in Scrabble, for spotting patterns in crosswords, and for those occasional Connections puzzles that group them together.

Stuck in the Loop? We’ve got tools for any word game!

Even the sharpest word brains hit a wall sometimes. Maybe Fluxis hands you a nasty rule. Maybe Bracket City strands you with one impossible branch of nested clues. Or maybe Stacks leaves you staring at a pile of words that just won’t match.

That’s where our tools come in. We’ve built helpers that don’t just spit out answers; they guide you to see patterns, spot playable words, and actually learn as you play. Think of them as your puzzle sidekick: part coach, part safety net.

So the next time you’re stuck, don’t sweat it. Pull up our word finders, pattern solvers, and strategy guides. They’ll get you unstuck fast and make you a sharper player across the board.

Our Atlantic Puzzle Companions

• Bracket City Hints
• The Atlantic Crossword Answers and Hints
• Fluxis Hints
• Stacks Hints