3 letter words with I and L

Our dictionary holds 17 3 letter words with i and l, all exactly 3 letters long. The highest-scoring of them is ILK, worth 7 points in Scrabble.

More of these words begin with L than any other letter — 9 of them, about 53% of the list.

13 appear in the 20,000 most common English words (76%), including oil, lib, ill, lie, lip; the remaining 4 are rarer finds that still count as valid plays.