Enter criteria and click Find Words
Three words place F second and O third, and all of them are words you could use tomorrow.
Each begins AFO and then splits. AFOOT means under way, AFORE is an older form of before, and AFOUL means tangled up with something. The fourth letter alone separates them.
All three are built the same way, with an A fastened to a short stem to make an adverb or preposition of state. ABED, ABLAZE and ASLEEP follow the same recipe, which is why these feel natural despite being uncommon.
Most groups this small are filled with dialect words, chemistry terms or archaic survivals. This one is not.
That makes it worth memorising. If a puzzle confirms F at two and O at three, you have three live options and every one of them is a plausible answer.
Repeats are minimal here, one out of three, and it is the double O sitting inside AFOOT.
AFOOT, comfortably. It survives in phrases like something is afoot, while AFORE has faded into dialect and older writing.
Entangled or in conflict with, usually in the phrase run afoul of. It is the most current of the three in everyday speech.
Three of the three do, because the A prefix is the only thing English puts in front of an F in this position at five letters.