WORD FINDER / OUR SOURCES
Our word list & how results are ordered
Our starting point is the English Speller Database (ESDB) generated American English word lists, maintained by Kevin Atkinson and contributors. The standard list offers a focused search. Both lists include individually checked additions. The extended list includes additional spellings, some regional variants and specialist words. The extended list includes arame, an edible seaweed used in Japanese cooking. See the source for arame.
What is included?
The original landing-page edition includes lowercase, unaccented entries of 3–7 letters. The selector also offers 2–15-letter functional views. Reviewed additions can include a lowercase lookup form for a documented spelling such as massé. Capitalized entries, apostrophes and hyphens are excluded; additional-length views keep the same spelling rules. Inflected forms may be present. Neither list is a complete inventory of English or an official game dictionary.
| Length | Standard | Extended |
|---|---|---|
| 3 letters | 821 | 1,047 |
| 4 letters | 2,744 | 3,558 |
| 5 letters | 5,200 | 7,151 |
| 6 letters | 8,393 | 11,940 |
| 7 letters | 11,676 | 17,153 |
What does “common first” mean?
General usage frequencies come from wordfreq by Robyn Speer. Higher-frequency matching words appear first; words without a frequency estimate remain available at the end. A to Z sorts alphabetically. The optional “Common words only” view shows matches with a historical wordfreq Zipf score of 3 or higher, roughly one occurrence per million words or more. Use the full view to see lower-frequency words and words without a score.
The frequency data is historical, approximately through 2021. It is not live usage, a guarantee that a word is familiar to everyone, or the probability of a game answer.
Additional word lengths
The word-length selector supports 2–15 letters on these existing tools. Additional views use the same pinned spelling and frequency sources and load only their selected length. They are functional views, not separate search landing pages. Expanded spelling data · Expanded meaning coverage · Additional dictionary credits.
Sources, versions & reuse
Word lists are pinned to generated commit 7f2f40783547; wordfreq data to 912caf64b657. The base edition was built on November 6, 2026. Reviewed additions include flyer and snuck in the standard list. The extended list includes individually checked terms such as axion and British forms such as fibre and spilt. Their usage notes link to individual references. When a frequency estimate may mainly count a different use of the same spelling, we can omit it, as with the informal verb ralph. Source hashes and exact transformations are in the data manifest.
ESDB copyright and permission notices are retained here. The combined word-and-frequency datasets are adapted and shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. See the wordfreq attribution and source credits, including SUBTLEX authors and its freely available data. Changes: American English intersection, lowercase ASCII length filter, frequency conversion, and standard-list marking.
Word meanings
Local meanings come from Princeton WordNet 3.1. We show source senses by part of speech, and label the base form when a spelling is linked through WordNet’s exception list. WordNet results use direct entries and verified base forms. Selected inflections link to their English Wiktionary word-form record. We also show adapted English definitions by Wiktionary contributors, with the entry and its license shown beside the definition. The Alavanta dictionary release and Teal Dulcet’s Compact Dictionaries package data extracted by Wiktextract. The site selects English senses and formats labels and word forms for display. Adapted entries retain their CC BY-SA 4.0 or CC BY-SA 3.0 license as marked. Selected entries have original usage notes with individual references. In the five-letter standard list, 5,198 of 5,200 words have a local meaning. When no reliable English meaning was confirmed, the meaning panel labels the entry as unverified and links to sources checked. A word can still match the selected word list. The meaning panel does not change which words match.
See the WordNet 3.1 copyright and license and coverage and source manifest.
Examples and pronunciations
Selected everyday uses have original example sentences. Additional examples from WordNet appear with their own sense. The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary license applies to our broad US phonetic transcriptions, with primary stress shown separately. Some uncommon spellings have a separately credited pronunciation. Selected words have locally served human recordings, with the accent, speaker and license displayed. For selected spellings with two readings, recordings and example sentences are grouped by meaning or verb form. Other single listed US readings can be spoken by a compatible English voice installed on your device. For words with different pronunciations by meaning, read the labels on the example sentences. You can follow a dictionary link for recordings where available.
Using results in word games
Guess feedback narrows the list using green, yellow and grey marks, including repeated letters. Check the rules of the game you are playing. Its accepted vocabulary can differ from this general English list. We do not label words as official answers or promise the best next guess.