Words From Letters

What this finds

Type the letters you have available, and the tool lists every English word in its dictionary that can be formed from those letters. Results are grouped by length (longer words at the top, since those are usually higher-scoring in word games).

For Scrabble blank tiles or wildcard letters, type ?. The tool treats each ? as any single letter and finds words that need it.

How the matching works

For each word in the dictionary, the tool checks: do you have enough of each letter to spell it? It counts the letters in your available pool, then walks through each word checking whether each letter has a remaining count. Wildcards (?) get used last, only when a needed letter isn’t available.

Words that need more of a specific letter than you have are filtered out. So with the letters STARGAZE, you can make STAR, GAZE, GAZER, STARE, RATES, but not STARS (you only have one S) or GREAT (no E from your letters… wait, there is one E. Bad example. Try GRATEFUL, no F).

What this is good for

• Scrabble / Words With Friends rescue: stuck with a rack you can’t play? Pop the letters in here, see your options.
• Anagram solving: 7-letter anagram in a puzzle? The tool finds every valid 7-letter rearrangement.
• Crossword fill-in: when you have most of a word but need to test combinations.
• Word-based games: Boggle, Bananagrams, anything involving rearranging letters.
• Word puzzles in newspapers: NYT Spelling Bee, daily crosswords, Word Hunt-style mobile games.

Wildcard usage

A single ? adds significant flexibility. Some patterns:

• ?ATES finds GATES, RATES, BATES, FATES, MATES, etc.
• STAR? finds STARE, START, STARS, STARK, STARN.
• Multiple wildcards (e.g. ??ARS) work too but combinatorial growth makes them slower for very large pools.

In real Scrabble, blank tiles are valuable but worth zero points. They unlock plays you couldn’t make otherwise.

Dictionary scope

The tool ships with a curated dictionary of about 2,000 common English words covering most everyday vocabulary plus enough Scrabble-tier words to be useful. It’s not the full TWL or SOWPODS Scrabble dictionary, those have around 250,000 words and would slow the tool down significantly.

If you don’t see a word you’d expect, it’s probably outside the curated list. For tournament Scrabble play, you’d want a dedicated tool that ships with the official Scrabble dictionary.

Strategy notes for word games

Some Scrabble-flavored advice that the tool’s results help with:

• Two-letter words are gold. AA, AB, AD, AE, AG, AH, AI, AL, AM, AN, AR, AS, AT, AW, AX, AY all play. The tool finds them when you set min length to 2.
• High-value letters: J, Q, X, Z. If you have one, prioritize plays that use it on a multiplier square.
• Q without U: words like QI, QAT, QUEUE (which has U) help when you don’t have a U.
• Common bingo tiles: 7-letter plays score 50 bonus points. Watch for racks with -ING, -ED, -ER, -EST endings combined with common stems.

Frequently asked questions

Why doesn’t it find “EXAMPLE-WORD” I know is real? The dictionary is curated, not exhaustive. About 2,000 common English words. Tournament-grade word lists have 100x more entries, including obscure plurals and obsolete forms.

Can I add letters that aren’t in my rack? Wildcards (?) handle that case. Each ? is one substitutable letter. To get answers as if you had any letter at all, type the actual letters plus 1-2 question marks.

Does it handle proper nouns? No. Standard word-game rules exclude proper nouns. The dictionary is lowercase common nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.

Why are results sorted by length? In most word games, longer words score more. Showing them first matches your priority order. Within a length, alphabetical for easy scanning.