Data Sources
Complete Disclosure of Word Lists Used
MyAnagramSolver uses three established word list sources: the TWL (North American Scrabble), Collins Scrabble Words (international), and a British English vocabulary supplement. Combined and deduplicated: 74,872 words. No web crawling. No invented entries.
Source 1 — TWL (Tournament Word List)
The TWL is the official word list for competitive Scrabble in the United States and Canada. It is maintained by the North American Scrabble Players Association and published by Hasbro. Words must meet established dictionary criteria to be added to the TWL. The list is reviewed periodically; new words are added when they gain sufficient dictionary recognition, and inappropriate words are occasionally removed.
TWL words represent the core of North American Scrabble play. Any word valid for tournament Scrabble in the US and Canada is in the TWL. The list emphasises well-established English vocabulary over archaic, technical, or regional forms — it is more conservative than Collins Scrabble Words.
Source 2 — Collins Scrabble Words (CSW)
Collins Scrabble Words, previously called SOWPODS, is the international Scrabble word list used in tournaments outside North America. It is published by Collins dictionaries and maintained by the World English-language Scrabble Players' Association. CSW contains substantially more words than the TWL — it includes British English vocabulary, archaic forms, technical terms, and words from other English varieties.
Including Collins Scrabble Words ensures the database is genuinely useful for players in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and other countries that use CSW in tournament play. Words valid only under Collins rules are part of the database and will appear in tool results, which is the expected behaviour for an internationally-oriented word tool.
Source 3 — British English Vocabulary Supplement
A standard British English vocabulary supplement ensures that common British English words and spellings are available even where they may not appear in the Scrabble-specific sources. British English and American English differ in spelling (COLOUR/COLOR, PROGRAMME/PROGRAM, THEATRE/THEATER), vocabulary (FORTNIGHT, LORRY, BISCUIT in their British senses), and word formation patterns. Both sets of spellings appear in the combined database.
Database Composition — Key Facts
What Is Not Included
The database does not include: invented or fictional words, proprietary brand names, web-crawled vocabulary, social media neologisms, or words from any language other than English. General proper nouns (names of people and most place names) are excluded by the source word lists and therefore not present in the database.
Statistics on this site describe the database as described above. They do not represent claims about the English language as a whole or about any other word database. Comparisons between statistics on this site and statistics from other sources (Wikipedia, academic corpora, other dictionary databases) should account for these differences in scope and composition.
Source List Differences — Why They Matter
The decision to combine TWL and Collins Scrabble Words rather than using either alone has significant implications for tool results. A tool using only TWL would exclude approximately 100,000 words valid in international Scrabble tournaments. A tool using only Collins would include words that North American tournament players cannot use. The combined approach serves both audiences: North American players see every word they can legally play, and international players see every word valid in their jurisdiction.
For users not playing competitive Scrabble — word puzzle enthusiasts, writers, crossword solvers, vocabulary learners — the combined database simply provides the most comprehensive coverage of established English words. A word that appears in Collins but not TWL is still a valid English word; excluding it would make the tool less useful for general word exploration without a compensating benefit.
The British English vocabulary supplement serves a slightly different purpose. It ensures that common British English words with Scrabble-specific exclusions (words that might not appear in Scrabble lists for historical or administrative reasons) remain findable. It also ensures that British spellings appear for words where the American and British forms differ, making the tool genuinely bilingual in terms of English variety.
From a research perspective, combining three sources introduces complexity in citation. When a published statistic says the database contains 74,872 words, that count reflects the combined, deduplicated union of three sources as of the fingerprint date. Comparisons with statistics from other word databases should account for the different source composition. A word count from a TWL-only tool will be lower; a count from a Collins-only tool will be higher; a count from a general dictionary may differ in both directions depending on the dictionary's scope.
Source Verification — How to Cross-Check
Any word's presence or absence in the database can be cross-checked via the anagram solver in Exact mode: enter the word's letters in the exact order and select Exact mode. If the word appears in results, it is in the database. If it does not appear, it is absent. This verification method uses the live database directly rather than any intermediate lookup. For words with accented characters or unusual spellings, entering the word exactly (including accents) is necessary for an accurate check.
Deduplication Process — How the Three Sources Merge
When words from TWL, Collins, and the British supplement are combined, duplicates are removed by case-insensitive string comparison. If the word ANAGRAM appears in all three sources, it appears once in the database. If COLOR appears in TWL and the British supplement, it appears once. If COLOUR appears only in Collins and the British supplement, it appears once. The final count of 74,872 reflects unique words only, with no double-counting of words shared across multiple sources.