The puzzle answers are as follows:
INEQUALITY
JOSEPH
FACADE
SECURE
SWAYINGS
Each of these five words has a bigram that can be subtracted without substantially changing the meaning of the word:
INEQUALITY − AL = INEQUITY JOSEPH − PH = JOSE FACADE − AD = FACE SECURE − EC = SURE SWAYINGS − AY = SWINGS
These five bigrams spell ALPHA DECAY, which is the answer to the metapuzzle.