EMERY

Meaning

An impure type of corundum, often used for sanding or polishing.

• verbTo sand or polish with emery.

EMERY as a word-puzzle answer

EMERY is a 5-letter word with 2 vowels (E, E) and 3 consonants (M, R, Y). It repeats 1 letter, which is a classic trap — guessers who assume five distinct letters get stuck.

It leans on high-frequency letters (E, R), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.