Word Unscrambler
Type the letters you have. The tool returns every dictionary word that can be built from them, longest first — the same order a word game scores them.
What "unscramble" means here
You give a multiset of letters — each letter as many times as you hold it — and the tool returns every dictionary word that can be spelled without using a letter more often than you have it. It is not limited to using every letter: a seven-letter rack also produces six-, five-, four-, three- and two-letter words, because in most word games those are worth playing.
Two rules decide what comes back:
- Letter counts, not just letter presence. LISTEN has one E. "SLEEP" needs two, so it is excluded even though every letter in it appears in the rack.
- Dictionary membership. A word has to be in the 152,405-entry list. Names, abbreviations written with capitals and multi-word phrases are not in it.
Worked example: LISTEN
Six letters, 90 valid words. Here are the first thirty, longest first:
- elints
- enlist
- inlets
- listen
- silent
- tinsel
- elint
- inlet
- inset
- islet
- istle
- lenis
- liens
- lines
- lints
- neist
- nites
- senti
- stein
- stile
- tiles
- tines
- isle
- leis
- lens
- lent
- lest
- lets
- lien
- lies
Three letters, TCA, gives four words: act, cat, at, ta. Both two-letter words are in the dictionary; ta is British informal usage, which is why it appears in a word-game list and not in most dictionaries of American English.
How the results are ordered
Longest first, then alphabetically. That order is deliberate: in Scrabble and Words With Friends the long word usually scores more, and in a word puzzle the longest match is usually the answer. If you want the opposite — the shortest word that uses the awkward letters — set Shortest word and add a starting letter.
Narrowing a large result
A rack of eight common letters can produce several hundred words. Three filters cut it down fast:
- Must contain — the letters you know are in the answer. Enter
stto keep only words with both S and T. - Starts with / Ends with — the letters already visible on the board.
- Shortest word — hide the two- and three-letter flood when you are looking for a long answer.
What the dictionary does not contain
- Proper nouns. Names of people, places and brands are excluded, which is why anagram tools cannot rearrange "London".
- Hyphenated and multi-word entries. No "well-being", no "ice cream".
- Words longer than 12 letters. The list is capped there, which covers every tile rack in the common games.
- Very new slang. The list is a static file, not a live lexicon; recent internet coinages may be missing.
Questions
Why is a word I know missing from the results?
Usually one of three reasons: it is not in the dictionary, it needs a letter twice and your rack has that letter once, or it is longer than 12 letters. Check the letter counts first — that is the most common cause.
Does the order of the letters I type matter?
No. The tool counts letters, so listen, silent and tnelis all return the same list.
Can I search for words that start and end with the same letter?
Not with a single field. Put the letter in both Starts with and Ends with; a two-letter word such as aa also matches, so raise Shortest word if you want longer answers.
Is the word list sent to my browser in full?
Yes — about 1.4 MB of text, 391 KB compressed, downloaded once per visit and cached by the browser. That is why the first search takes a moment and later ones are instant. Nothing you type is sent to the server.
All word tools
Every page on this site. All five solvers read the same 152,405-word dictionary, so a word that is missing from one is missing from all of them.