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140 five letter words begin with LI, and nearly a quarter of them take N as the third letter.
N takes about twenty three percent and M sixteen. T follows at nine, then E, B and V between five and six.
LINKS, LINES, LINED, LINEN and LINER all run LIN, which makes it the largest three letter shape on the page by a wide margin.
Confirming that N drops you into a family where only the last two boxes remain, so it narrows faster than any other single test here.
LIMIT and LIVES cover the next two branches, and between the three of them you have touched most of what the group holds.
LIGHT, LISTS, LIVED and LIKED spread across the smaller branches and share almost nothing with the LIN family beyond the opening pair.
LINES is the best first guess. It covers the dominant family and its E and S are the two commonest endings across the whole group.
They differ in the last box alone. Both sit in the LIN family, so a guess on either narrows the other to one option.
LIN opens a productive set of roots covering lines, links and linens, and each of those takes several endings at five letters.
It is one of the most common entries but its G and H are weak tests, and it commits to a branch holding under a tenth of the group.