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Only seven words place V second and O third, and two of them are a single letter apart.
To avoid something is to keep away from it, and ovoid means egg shaped. They share four letters, differ only at the front, and belong to completely different registers.
Both are ordinary English and neither has any connection to the other or to the AVOID pair. Between them they cover most of what a puzzle could reasonably want.
OVOLI and OVOLO name a rounded convex moulding, with OVOLO the singular and OVOLI its Italian plural. AVOWS, the third person form of avow, is the last entry.
O opens three of the seven and A opens two, with E and I taking one each. Every entry begins with a vowel.
D closes two of the seven, from AVOID and OVOID, and no other ending appears more than once.
Only the opening letter differs, so you need a guess that tests A or O in the first box. Nothing later in the word will help.
A convex moulding shaped like a quarter circle, used in classical architecture. OVOLI is the plural.
The verb avow is formal but current, usually meaning to declare openly. The third person form is less often written.
A V in the second box needs something in front of it, and no consonant produces a real word at this length. Only the vowels work.