How to use the Scrabble Word Finder
The finder answers one question: given these tiles, what can I actually play? Everything else on the page exists to narrow that answer down.
The basics
Type the letters from your rack and press the button. You get every word that can be built from those letters, grouped by length, with the highest scoring words first inside each group. Every word links to its own page, where you can check which dictionaries accept it.
You can enter up to fifteen characters. That is not an arbitrary cap: no word game deals more than fifteen tiles at once, so a longer word could not be built from a rack anyway.
The blank tile
Any character that is not a letter counts as a blank — an underscore, a question mark, a digit, whatever you find easiest to type. So cat__ means three known letters and two blanks.
Blanks are worth zero points, and the finder accounts for that: a word played with a blank shows a lower score than the same word played with real tiles. That difference is easy to forget and it changes which move is actually best.
Filters
A rack of seven common letters can produce several hundred words, which is not a useful answer. The advanced panel narrows it:
- Starts with and ends with — for hooking onto a word already on the board.
- Contains — when you need to play through a letter that is already placed.
- Excludes — to keep a tile you want to hold back.
- Pattern — underscores stand for any letter, so
_ _ s _ _finds five letter words with S in the middle. This is the filter to use when you are looking at a gap on the board rather than at your rack.
Choosing the word list
Four word lists are checked, and you can switch any of them off. This matters more than it looks: a quarter of all the words we hold appear in Collins and nowhere else. If you are playing under a North American list, leaving Collins on will show you words your opponent will successfully challenge. See which dictionary applies where.
Reading the results
The answer is not one list, it is a structure, and each part of it means something:
- Best words at the top is not simply the highest score. It is the best score for the fewest tiles — the move that scores well without emptying your rack.
- Groups by length, longest first. Inside each group the highest scoring word comes first, so the top-left word of each block is the one to look at.
- Letters printed in red are the ones a blank had to cover. They score nothing, which is why a word with a red letter can rank below a shorter word.
- Words per group and show points are in the panel and are remembered between visits.
The address bar is the search
Every search has its own address: /finder/aeiprst is the rack A E I P R S T. That means a result can be bookmarked, sent to someone, or reopened later without retyping — and the page shows the direct link under the results for exactly that reason.
It also means you can edit the address instead of the form when you want to change one tile, which is faster once you notice it.
Three ways people use this, and the one that improves your game
- Mid-game, to find the move. Fastest, and it teaches you nothing.
- After the turn, to see what you missed. Slower, and it is how players actually get better — you find out that the rack you thought was dead held a fifty point bingo.
- Away from the board, as a study tool: pattern searches to build lists, then the trainers to memorise them.
Looking a word up directly
If you only need to know whether a word is valid, go straight to the dictionary. It gives the answer for all four lists at once, along with the score in both Scrabble and Words with Friends.
Common questions
Why do I get fewer words than another site? Usually because of the dictionary switches. Another finder may be searching Collins while you have it switched off, or may be searching a list with no editions or dates attached at all. Our dictionary pages say which edition each answer came from.
Can I search without a rack, just by shape? Yes — leave the letters empty and use Pattern in the advanced panel, or use the crossword solver, which is built for exactly that.
Does it work for Words with Friends? Use the WWF page instead: different tile values, different bag, different word list. The same rack gives genuinely different advice.
Is using it cheating? In a rated tournament, yes, and it is against the rules of every organised event. In a casual game against an app opponent who is doing the same, it is levelling the field. Reviewing your own game afterwards is not cheating under anyone's rules.