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Twelve words carry E second and O third, and the pair is doing two different jobs across the group.
N takes the fourth box in five of the twelve, giving AEONS, NEONS, PEONS, PEONY and LEONE. Each is built on a short stem with EO at its heart.
That makes the fourth box the most predictable part of the pattern. Guess N there and you are right more often than not.
Both come from the Greek for earth and they differ in the last two boxes only. A geode is a hollow rock lined with crystals, while a geoid is the shape of the earth's surface used in surveying.
MEOWS is the one everyday word left over. CEORL was a free peasant in Anglo Saxon England, FEODS are feudal estates, and REOIL means to oil something again.
FEOFF stands apart because it ends in a doubled F. Repeats are rare here, one out of twelve, and FEOFF is the one.
PEONY tests the Y ending and the P opener. AEONS tests the S ending that five of these take, so it eliminates more of the group.
The currency of Sierra Leone. It is the kind of word that turns up in crosswords far more often than in conversation.
They do not. A peon is a labourer and a peony is a flower, and the shared letters are a coincidence.