Words With Letters
This is the other direction: instead of starting from a rack, start from what you know about the word. Contains, starts with, ends with, length.
Letters, not a substring
The Must contain field takes letters, in any order, anywhere in the word. Typing ou does not mean the word has to contain the sequence "ou" — it means the word must contain at least one O and at least one U. So auto matches, and so does bout; about would match too if the length range allowed it.
If you need a fixed sequence, use the pattern tool instead — the crossword solver treats ?o?e? as positions. This page is for the looser question: which words use these letters and have this shape?
Worked examples
| Filter | Result |
|---|---|
Contains ou, exactly 4 letters | 64 words: auto, bout, buoy, coup, dour, euro, foul, four … |
Starts qu, ends y | 48 words: quackery, quaggy, quaintly, quaky, qualify, quality … |
Contains str, 7 letters | 1,615 words — it includes any word with S, T and R, so it is not a useful filter on its own |
Starts un, ends ed, 8 letters | 264 words: unabated, unabused, unallied, unargued, unbacked … |
The second row is the useful pattern: a prefix plus a suffix plus a length is usually enough to get under a hundred results. The third row shows what happens when the letters are too common — S, T and R appear in so many words that "contains" stops being a filter.
When this beats the unscrambler
- Crosswords and hangman. You know the first and last letters and the length, but not the middle.
- Scrabble endgames. You know you need a word with an O and a U, and you want to see what exists before deciding where to play.
- Finding a word from a vague memory. "Seven letters, starts with un, ends with ed" is a query this page answers directly.
- Checking whether a word exists inside a length range, when you are not sure of the spelling.
Reading the result
Results are sorted longest first, then alphabetically — the same order as the other tools here. Long lists are cut at 300 entries with a note; add a prefix or suffix to shrink the list rather than scrolling.
The list is a dictionary, not a frequency ranking. A word you have never seen is usually a real but rare entry, not a bug: the 152,405-word list includes technical and archaic vocabulary so that crossword and Scrabble answers are not missing.
Questions
Why does "contains ou" return words with only an O or only a U?
It should not — both letters are required. If you see one, the field probably still holds an older value. Clear it and retype; the result updates as you type, 300 ms after the last keystroke.
Can I search for a word by meaning?
No. This is a spelling tool. Meaning-based search needs a dictionary with definitions, which is a different dataset and a much larger download.
Why is the length range 2 to 12?
Two letters is the shortest standard word-game entry, and 12 covers the longest common rack. Allowing longer words would add tens of thousands of rare compounds without helping any game.