Scrabble Word Finder
Find the highest-scoring Scrabble plays.
Free · Runs in your browser · Nothing is uploaded
Type the letters on your rack and this Scrabble word finder returns every word the dictionary says you can build with them, ranked by what each one scores. It runs entirely in your browser against a 240,908-word list, so there is nothing to install and no rack is ever sent anywhere. The filters underneath the rack are the part most people ignore and the part that actually wins games — they let you answer the question you really have, which is almost never "what can I spell" but "what can I spell that hooks onto the D in the bottom-left corner".
Reading the score column, and why it is not the whole answer
Every result carries a number on the left. That is the face value of the word: the sum of the standard English Scrabble tile values, with A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T and U worth one point each, up through Q and Z at ten. QUIZZED is worth 35 points of raw tiles. QI and ZA are each worth 11 despite being two letters long, which is why both are so heavily memorised by competitive players.
What the number deliberately does not include is the board. Double letter, triple letter, double word and triple word squares can swing a play by a factor of three or more, and a fifty-point bonus lands whenever you use all seven tiles in one turn. A 24-point word across a triple beats a 31-point word on plain squares, and this tool has no way to know which one you are looking at. Treat the score as a starting sort, not a verdict.
This matters most when the top of the list is crowded. If the first six results are within two or three points of each other, the ranking is close to meaningless and you should be choosing on placement instead — which word reaches a premium square, which one opens the least for your opponent, and which one dumps your worst tiles.
- One point: A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T, U
- Two points: D, G
- Three points: B, C, M, P
- Four points: F, H, V, W, Y
- Five points: K
- Eight points: J, X
- Ten points: Q, Z
Blanks: type ? and read the discount honestly
Put a question mark or an asterisk in the rack for each blank tile you hold. RETINA? searches as six known letters plus one wildcard, and the results tell you how many blanks each word consumed.
The scoring reflects the real rule: a blank is worth zero points no matter which letter it represents. RETINAS is a seven-point word if you spell it with real tiles. Spell it with a blank standing in for one letter and the tool reports six, because it discounts the cheapest letter the blank could be covering. That is the best case for you, and it is the honest way to rank a blank play, but it does mean a blanked word will always look slightly worse than the same word built from real tiles.
The strategic point that follows is one blanks beginners get wrong constantly. A blank is not a scoring tile, it is a bingo enabler. Spending one to add four points to an ordinary word is usually a loss; holding it until it completes a seven-tile play and the fifty-point bonus is usually a win. When the finder shows you a high-scoring blank play, check whether the same blank could wait a turn and do far more work.
The three filters that turn a Scrabble word finder into a move finder
A bare rack search returns hundreds of words, most of which you cannot legally place. The starts-with, contains and ends-with fields exist to cut that list down to words that fit the board in front of you, and using even one of them changes the tool from a curiosity into something that finds moves.
Use ends-with when you are hooking onto a letter already on the board, which is the most common real situation in a game. Holding PLAYING and filtering to words ending in ING returns PLAYING, PAYING, PLYING, LAYING and PALING — five candidates of different lengths, so you can pick the one that reaches the square you want.
Use starts-with the same way when your word has to begin at a fixed point, such as immediately after an existing tile or at the edge of a premium square you are trying to reach. Use contains when a letter sits mid-word on the board and your play has to cross it, which happens constantly in a crowded endgame.
You can combine all three. Filtering a rack to words that start with C, contain O and end with N is often the difference between a list of four hundred possibilities and a list of two, one of which is the move you should make.
Two-letter words are the skill this tool exposes fastest
Nothing separates casual players from strong ones like the two-letter list. They are how you play parallel to an existing word, forming several short words at once and scoring every one of them, and they are how you dump a stranded vowel without giving up a turn.
Set both length filters to two and search a vowel-heavy rack. From AEIOULNRST you get AE, AI, AL, AN, AR, AS, AT and EA among others — most of which look wrong to anyone who has not seen the tournament list, and all of which are valid. AE is a Scottish variant of one. AI is a three-toed sloth. Learning even thirty of these does more for the average player's score than learning any number of long, showy words.
The reason this is worth practising with a finder rather than a wordlist is that you learn them in context. Searching your actual rack and seeing which twos are available teaches you the ones you will actually hold, which sticks far better than reading an alphabetical list.
Which dictionary this uses, and where it will disagree with your game
The bundled list is a general English word list of 240,908 entries between two and twelve letters. It is not TWL, the North American tournament list, and it is not SOWPODS or Collins, the international one. It overlaps heavily with both and will be right the overwhelming majority of the time, but it is not an official reference and you should not treat it as an adjudicator in a rated game.
Two practical consequences. First, it contains some words a tournament list would reject, so if you are playing under strict rules, a challenge could still take a word off the board. Second, the twelve-letter ceiling means the very longest words are absent — a deliberate trade, because the thirteen-to-fifteen letter tail is roughly 29,000 rare words that would nearly double the download for words almost nobody plays. A Scrabble board can only fit fifteen letters across, and plays that long are vanishingly rare.
If you play competitively and need adjudication, use your federation's official word list for challenges and use this to find candidates quickly. The two jobs are different.
Working the rack rather than the word
Strong players think about leave — the tiles remaining after a play — at least as much as the play itself. A finder is naturally biased against this, because it ranks by what you score right now and knows nothing about what you keep.
The habit worth building is to read down past the top result. If the highest scorer uses both your S tiles and your only vowel for a four-point gain, and the third result scores three fewer while keeping S, E and R, the third result is usually the better move. S tiles and the RETAINS letters are the raw material of bingos, and spending them cheaply is how good racks turn into bad ones.
Look for the plays that dump duplicate consonants, awkward high-value tiles you cannot place, and surplus vowels while scoring acceptably. The tool will show you those plays; it just will not rank them first, because scoring them correctly would require knowing the board, the bag and your opponent.
Worked examples
aeioultoutlie (6), auloi (5), louie (5), lutea (5)A vowel-heavy rack scores badly no matter what you find — the real value here is spotting which play sheds three vowels at once and leaves you a workable consonant balance.
retina? (six letters plus one blank)jantier (13, 1 blank), nartjie (13, 1 blank), keratin (10, 1 blank)All three use every tile, so any of them would collect the fifty-point bingo bonus that the face-value score does not show.
playing, filtered to words ending in ingplaying, paying, plying, laying, palingFive lengths from five to seven letters, so you can choose the one that reaches the premium square rather than the one that scores most in isolation.
Frequently asked questions
Does the score include double and triple word squares?+
No. The number shown is the face value of the tiles only. Board premiums, letter multipliers and the fifty-point bonus for using all seven tiles are not included, because the tool has no way to see your board. Use the score to sort candidates, then choose between the top few based on where they can actually be placed.
How do I enter a blank tile?+
Type a question mark or an asterisk for each blank. RET?NAS searches with one wildcard. Results show how many blanks each word used, and blanked letters score zero, matching the real rule.
Is this the official Scrabble dictionary?+
No. It is a general English word list of 240,908 words, not TWL or Collins. It overlaps heavily with both and is reliable for casual play, but it is not an adjudicator — a word it accepts could still be successfully challenged in a rated tournament game.
Why do I only see 200 results?+
The list is capped at the 200 highest-scoring words to keep the page fast and readable. Vowel-heavy racks can legitimately produce thousands of matches. If you are hitting the cap, use the starts-with, contains or ends-with filters — the words you can actually place are a small fraction of the words you can spell.
Why are some very long words missing?+
The dictionary is capped at twelve letters. Longer entries are roughly 29,000 rare words that would nearly double the download for plays that are almost never possible — a Scrabble board is only fifteen squares wide, and plays that long are exceptionally rare.
Does it work for Words with Friends?+
The word finding works, but the scores do not. Words with Friends uses different tile values and a different board layout, so the numbers here will not match. Use the results to find candidate words and score them yourself against that game's values.
Is my rack sent to a server?+
No. The dictionary downloads to your browser once and every search runs locally on your device. Nothing you type is transmitted, logged or stored.
What should I check when a known word is missing?+
Check the supplied letters, length constraints, and dictionary coverage first. A valid word in one game or region may be absent from another word list. Do not add unsupported letters merely to force the expected answer.
Why can a plausible answer still be wrong?+
An answer must fit every stated constraint, not merely resemble the topic. Check length, letters, positions, and clue interpretation separately. If one condition fails, keep searching. A confident explanation does not repair a mismatch between the candidate and the puzzle's actual rules.
How should I enter repeated letters?+
Preserve the available quantity of each letter. A candidate that needs two copies of a letter cannot be made from one copy unless the rules provide a usable blank or wildcard. Review the input carefully before interpreting a missing candidate as a dictionary problem.
Does the longest candidate always make the best choice?+
No. The best choice depends on the task. A board game may reward position and crossing words, while a clue may require a shorter answer. Compare candidates using the puzzle's actual objective rather than treating word length as a universal ranking.
Can dictionary differences explain missing words?+
Yes. Word lists differ in regional spelling, inflections, specialist terms, proper names, and game-specific rules. Check the dictionary accepted by your activity. A word can be valid in ordinary language while being excluded from a particular game or from the tool's available list.
How do I make a puzzle suitable for children?+
Use familiar vocabulary, clear instructions, and examples that match the intended age and experience. Test the puzzle yourself and avoid clues that require obscure cultural references. Difficulty should come from the skill being practiced, not from information the audience could not reasonably know.
What if two answers fit the same clue?+
Treat both as plausible until another constraint distinguishes them. For a puzzle you are writing, add a fair clarifying clue. For a puzzle you are solving, use crossing letters or other evidence. Do not force a single answer merely because it appeared first.
Should I reveal the answer immediately in a group game?+
Decide the rules before play begins. You might offer a hint, allow a timed attempt, or reveal the reasoning afterward. A consistent process is fairer than changing the assistance depending on who is playing or which answer you expected them to give.