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Seventy eight words put H second and E third, and a small set of openers covers almost all of them.
All three are common, all three run THE, and they split only in the last two boxes. THEME and THECA sit in the same branch, so confirming TH leaves plenty of work still to do.
That is unusual for a group this large. Most patterns hand you a clear front runner, and this one offers several words a puzzle is equally likely to want.
CHECK, CHEAP, SHEET, WHEEL and SHELL are the most useful once you are past the THE cluster. CHEST, CHEER and SHEEP are worth holding in reserve.
S takes twenty of the seventy eight, C takes eighteen, T takes seventeen and W takes fourteen, which is sixty nine between them. The rest of the alphabet barely registers.
Fifteen of the seventy eight repeat a letter, and most of those put a second E straight after the first. CHEEK, CHEEP, CHEER, SHEEN, SHEEP and SHEER all work that way.
Work the fourth box. THEIR takes I, THERE takes R and THESE takes S, so one confirmed letter settles it.
It repeats the C, which costs part of the guess. SHEET or CHEAP will usually tell you more about the group.
Either the pincer claw of a crab or a disciple of a religious teacher, depending on which language it came from. Both meanings are current, which makes it genuinely ambiguous.