Word Unscrambler

How to use the word unscrambler

Type the letters on your rack and the finder instantly lists every valid word, sorted longest first so the highest-scoring plays sit at the top. Use the options panel to narrow results.

Blank tiles & wildcards

Scrabble and Words with Friends include blank tiles. Type ? or * for each blank and it can stand in for any letter. For example, TR?A finds words like tray, trap and rota.

Filters

Must include keeps only words containing a letter (handy for a tricky Q or Z). Starts with and ends with match a prefix or suffix, perfect for fitting a word onto the board.

What is an anagram?

An anagram rearranges all the letters of a word to make another, such as LISTEN and SILENT. This tool finds full anagrams as well as shorter words that use only some of your letters.

How the finder works

Rather than testing every arrangement of your letters — which for seven tiles would be 5,040 permutations before you even consider shorter words — the finder sorts your letters into a canonical key and looks that key up against a pre-indexed dictionary. Each dictionary word is stored under its own sorted letters, so listen, silent and tinsel all live under eilnst. Lookup is effectively instant and gets every valid subset at once.

Rack strategy that beats raw scoring

The longest word is not always the best play. Three habits raise a Scrabble average more than vocabulary alone.

• Manage your leave. The tiles you keep matter as much as the ones you play. Dumping a Q or a duplicate I to keep a balanced mix of vowels and consonants often beats a slightly bigger score.
• Hunt the premium squares. A 22-point word on a double-word square beats a 30-point word in open space, and covering two premiums at once is where games are won.
• Learn the two- and three-letter lists. They are how you hook onto existing words, open or close the board, and score in tight positions. Roughly a hundred two-letter words carry most of the value.

High-value letters and where they go

Anagrams, subwords and blanks

A true anagram uses every letter; a subword uses some of them. Word games need both, so results here include every length from two letters up. Use a ? to represent a blank tile and the finder treats it as any letter — expect a much longer list, since one blank multiplies the possibilities roughly twenty-six-fold.

Dictionaries differ

Tournament play in North America uses one official word list; most of the rest of the world uses Collins, which is considerably larger and accepts many words the American list does not. Casual apps use their own lists again. If a word is rejected in a game you are playing, it is usually a dictionary difference rather than an error. Agree the reference list before a competitive game.

For more on rack management and openings, see our Scrabble strategy guide.