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Twenty six words put C in the second box and A in the third, and twenty five of them open with S. This pattern is the SCA family wearing different endings.
SCALE, SCARE, SCARF, SCANS and SCALP all come out of that one opening, which covers ninety six percent of the page. Guessing the S is nearly free here, so your real work sits in the last two boxes.
ACARI is the single entry with anything else in the first box, and it is a term for mites rather than vocabulary you carry. So in practice the first letter is settled before you begin.
R and L fill the fourth box in thirteen of the twenty six between them, so the SCAR and SCAL shapes carry a large share of the group. Rule both out and you have cut the list roughly in half.
Twenty five of the twenty six do, which is everything except one. S is as close to guaranteed as a first letter gets on this site.
Yes, it means a mischievous person. It runs S, C, A, M, P and fits the pattern exactly.
Only the last letter, and both are common. Guessing one does not rule out the other, so it is worth spending a turn elsewhere first.
S leads with seven words and P follows on four. No ending dominates the way the SC opening does.