Word Unscrambler

Results update about a quarter of a second after you stop typing, so the buttons are optional. The first search downloads a word list of about 1.7 MB, which the page then keeps in memory until you close it.

1. Type your tiles in Your letters (use ? for a blank). The box starts with the sample retains. You can use up to 15 tiles, and a ? stands for any one letter.
2. Set Shortest word from 2 to 15 to hide short words. The default is 3.
3. If you want to narrow the list, fill in Starts with (optional), Ends with (optional) or Contains (optional). These only filter the results. They do not add letters to your rack.
4. Press Find words if you want to run the search again, or just wait for the results to appear.
5. Read the groups from the longest words down. Each word carries its Scrabble tile points, and the note above the list says how many words were found and how many use every letter.
6. Press Copy all words to copy the list, one word per line, for a note or a spreadsheet.

The tool lists at most 2,500 words. If a long rack with several blanks hits that limit, the longest words are kept and the note tells you the list was cut.

A word qualifies when it can be built from your tiles. Each real letter can be used no more times than you typed it, and each ? can stand in for any one letter. Letters are not rearranged into a particular order, because every order is allowed, which is why this is called unscrambling. The list comes from the ENABLE word list, a public-domain set of about 173,000 English words commonly used for word games in North America.

With the sample rack retains and the shortest word set to 3, the tool finds 237 words. Nine of them use all seven tiles: anestri, antsier, nastier, ratines, retains, retinas, retsina, stainer and stearin. Another 28 words have six letters and 72 have five. Type st in Starts with (optional) and the list drops to 14 words, including stain, stair, star, stainer and stearin.

A blank widens the search a lot. Change the rack to retain? and the result grows to 1,342 words, 53 of them with seven letters, because the blank can be an s, a d, a g and so on. Each ? can only fill one position, so two blanks allow two letters that you do not hold. If you type more than 15 tiles, only the first 15 are used and the note says so.

Spaces and punctuation in the letters box are ignored, and the characters * and _ are treated like ?. When you only need to sort or deduplicate a list of words you already have, the alphabetical order tool and the duplicate line remover do that job.

The small number beside each word is its total in standard Scrabble tile values. A tile you supply as a blank scores 0, so the same word is worth less when a ? stands in for one of its letters. From the rack retain?, the word retains scores 6, because the s comes from the blank.

These are tile values only. The tool knows nothing about the board, so double and triple letter or word squares, the bonus for using all seven tiles and the cross-words you form are not counted. Use the points to compare candidate words, not to predict a turn score.

The word list is another limit. ENABLE is a North American list in the style of a Scrabble dictionary. Some British spellings, newer words, proper nouns or words your game rules out may be missing or present. Official tournament lists such as NWL and Collins differ from it and from each other, so check the list your game or club uses before you challenge a play.

Most disappointing results come from the same few causes. A Shortest word value above the number of tiles you typed gives an empty list. A filter that cannot match anything, such as an ending that needs letters you do not hold, does the same, so clear the filters first when the list looks too short. Remember that Contains (optional) looks for a run of letters inside the word, in the order you typed them, not just any mix of those letters.

The tool does not match patterns such as c_t_ with unknown positions between known letters. For a crossword gap, combine Starts with (optional) and Ends with (optional) with a blank in the rack and scan the length group you need.

Other uses include solving jumbled-letter puzzles, checking whether a word can be made from a set of tiles, and building word lists for classroom games. For a quick source of tiles, the random letter generator draws letters at random. To check how long a copied list is, paste it into the word counter or the character counter.

The list updates only in your browser. If the word list cannot be loaded, because the connection dropped for example, the note under the tool says so and the search can be repeated when the connection is back.