--- a/src/htypes.hxx
+++ b/src/htypes.hxx
@@ -62,13 +62,18 @@
 #  define HUNSPELL_THREAD_LOCAL static
 #endif
 
+// Field order chosen to minimize padding on 32-bit and 64-bit ABIs:
+// pointers first, then 2-byte fields, then 1-byte fields. On wasm32 this
+// packs to 20 bytes vs 24 with the upstream order; on 64-bit native, from
+// 40 to 32 bytes. Both savings are meaningful for large dictionaries
+// (e.g. Bulgarian has ~700K entries).
 struct hentry {
+  unsigned short* astr;         // affix flag vector
+  struct hentry* next;          // next word with same hash code
+  struct hentry* next_homonym;  // next homonym word (with same hash code)
   unsigned short blen;   // word length in bytes
   unsigned short clen;   // word length in characters (different for UTF-8 enc.)
   short alen;            // length of affix flag vector
-  unsigned short* astr;  // affix flag vector
-  struct hentry* next;   // next word with same hash code
-  struct hentry* next_homonym;  // next homonym word (with same hash code)
   char var;      // bit vector of H_OPT hentry options
   char word[1];  // variable-length word (8-bit or UTF-8 encoding)
 };