A word unscrambler takes the letters you have and returns every word in its list that can be built from them. It is useful for practice, for seeing what a rack could have made once a game is over, and for casual matches where everyone agrees to use one. In a serious game most players treat it as cheating, so settle that first. This guide shows how to get good results from the Everyday Tools word unscrambler and what the official Scrabble and Words With Friends rules say about the tiles you type in.
Enter your rack exactly as it is
In Scrabble each player draws seven tiles and refills the rack to seven after every turn [1]. Type those letters into Your letters with no spaces. The tool uses each letter only as often as you typed it, so a rack with one E never produces a word with two. Set Find to All words, short and long to see everything, or to Full anagrams only to see words that use every tile.
Take the rack RETAINS. With Find on All words, short and long and the default Hide offensive words filter on, the tool returns 351 words grouped by length, from 22 two letter words up to 11 seven letter words. Switch to Full anagrams only and you get just those 11, from anestri and antsier to starnie and stearin. Turn on Common words only and the list shrinks to three: nastier, retains and retinas.
Blank tiles: type ? for each one
A standard Scrabble set has 100 tiles, and exactly two of them are blanks [1]. A blank can be used as any letter but has no point value, even on a double or triple letter square [1]. When you play one you must announce which letter it stands for, and it cannot be changed for the rest of the game [1]. Words With Friends treats blanks the same way: they stand for any letter and score nothing [2].
In the tool, type ? for each blank, up to two. Try RETAIN? with Full anagrams only and Common words only: 22 seven letter words come back, including certain, granite, painter, terrain and trainer. Letters that had to come from a blank are underlined in the results, so you can see that the blank is the C in certain or the S in retains.
Because a blank scores zero, its real value is in clearing your rack. Scrabble awards a 50 point bonus, called a Bingo, for playing all seven tiles in one turn [1]. Words With Friends awards 35 bonus points for the same feat [2].
Fit the board with Starts with, Ends with and Contains
To build through a letter already on the board, add it to Your letters along with your rack, then open More options and put it in Starts with, Ends with or Contains. The letters you type there must also be in Your letters, and Contains means the letters appear together, in that order. With RETAIN? and Starts with set to ST, the list drops to 23 words such as stainer, strain and stern. With RETAINS, Contains set to AI and Common words only on, you get 13 words, from retains and strain down to rain and air.
Which words will the game accept?
A word unscrambler can only report what is in its own list. This tool uses the Letterpress English word list, which combines U.S., UK and Australian spellings and is released under the CC0 public domain dedication [3]. Its maintainers note that esoteric and domain specific words may be rejected and that a few acronyms and abbreviations remain for historical reasons [3]. It is not the official Scrabble list.
The games have their own rules. Hasbro's Scrabble rules allow any word in The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary or in a dictionary the players agree on before the game, and the dictionary is used only to settle challenges [1]. Proper nouns and other words that start with a capital letter, abbreviations, acronyms, prefixes or suffixes standing alone, hyphenated words and words with apostrophes are not allowed [1]. A play may be challenged before the next player starts a turn: if the word is not in the dictionary the player takes the letters back and loses the turn, and if it is there the challenger loses their next turn [1]. Words With Friends uses the official NASPA word list, and a word cannot be placed if it creates an illegal word with the neighboring letters [2].
- Before playing an unfamiliar word such as anestri or resiant at a real board, check the dictionary your group agreed on. A failed challenge costs the turn.
- Turn on Common words only when you want words you can defend. For RETAINS it keeps 3 of the 11 full anagrams.
When nothing useful comes up
QZXJKVW returns 0 words at any length, and AEIOUUV returns 23 words with only three common ones: ova, via and vie. When that happens, Scrabble lets you use a turn to exchange all or some of your letters [1]. Words With Friends also lets you swap tiles on your rack for new ones from the tile bag [2]. An unscrambler cannot fix a bad rack, but it can tell you quickly that it is time to trade it in.