What the Anagram Solver does
This anagram solver unscrambles a set of letters into every English word they can make: full anagrams that use every letter come first, then shorter words grouped by length. Type up to 20 letters, add up to three blanks (? or *) for a blank tile or an unknown letter, and narrow the list with a must-include letter, a starting or ending sequence, and a word length.
It is built for word games and puzzles - Scrabble and Words with Friends racks, crossword and Wordle guesses, word jumbles - and for curious questions such as which words hide inside your name. The dictionary is a list of about 38,900 common English words loaded with the page, and the search runs in your browser, so what you type is never sent anywhere.
How to use it
- Type your letters in any order and any case. Spaces and punctuation are ignored.
- Add a ? or * for each blank tile, or for a letter you do not know yet. Letters filled in by a blank are underlined in the results.
- Open Filters to require a letter, a start or an end (for example words ending in ING), or to limit the word length - five letters for a Wordle guess, for instance.
- Read the full anagrams at the top, then the shorter words by length, longest first.
- Copy the words or download them as a CSV with each word's length and the letters taken from blanks.
Reading the results
A full anagram uses every letter you typed exactly once: LISTEN gives ENLIST, INLETS, SILENT and TINSEL. If there is none, the longest group is the best you can do with those letters.
Must-include counts repeats. Asking for EE only shows words with at least two Es, and nothing is shown if your letters do not contain two Es (or blanks to cover them).
The list is common English, including plurals and verb forms, without proper nouns, abbreviations or most very rare words. A word appearing here does not guarantee it is legal in a particular game, and a valid game word may be missing - check your game's official word list when it matters.
Worked example: LISTEN, and a Scrabble rack with a blank
LISTEN has six letters, each used once. Every word in the list that uses exactly those six letters is a full anagram: ENLIST, INLETS, LISTEN, SILENT and TINSEL. Shorter words follow - INLET, LINES, TILES, NEST, SILT, NET and many more.
The rack RETAIN plus a blank (RETAIN?) has seven tiles. The blank can be any letter, so seven-letter words such as RETAINS (blank = S), TERRAIN (blank = R) and CERTAIN (blank = C) appear, each with the blank letter underlined - in Scrabble the blank scores zero, which matters when choosing between them.
For a five-letter guess containing R from the letters ACRTSEO, set Must include to R and the length to 5: CRATE, REACT, TRACE, STARE, ROAST and others are listed.
How the solver works
For every word in the dictionary, the solver counts each letter it needs and compares it with the letters you have. Any shortfall must be covered by a blank; if there are not enough blanks, the word is skipped. Because this is a simple count rather than a search through every arrangement, even 20 letters with three blanks are checked in a few milliseconds.
Results are capped at 3,000 words and 400 are shown on the page, so a long input with blanks stays readable. Filters reduce the list without losing anything; the download contains every word found.
About the word list
The dictionary combines the common-word levels of SCOWL (Spell Checker Oriented Word Lists, by Kevin Atkinson) as packaged in wordlist-english 1.2.1, with American and British spellings. It was chosen because it is openly licensed and contains everyday words rather than obscure ones, which suits puzzles and casual play. Competitive Scrabble uses its own lists (Collins Scrabble Words outside North America, the NASPA Word List in North America), which include many more words.
Limitations: what the result does not prove
- The dictionary is common English only - roughly 38,900 words. Rare words, proper nouns, place names, slang and words from other languages are not included.
- It does not check whether a word is allowed in a particular game, and it does not score words or place them on a board.
- Up to 20 letters and 3 blanks at a time; more blanks make almost every word possible and the list stops being useful.
- It finds single words, not multi-word phrase anagrams.
Privacy: where your data goes
Everything you paste, type or drop is processed in this browser tab. It is not uploaded, logged, stored or sent to analytics. Session recording and tag-manager scripts are switched off on this page.
Standards and sources
- SCOWL - Spell Checker Oriented Word Lists (Kevin Atkinson)
- wordlist-english on npm (version 1.2.1)
- NASPA Word List - official North American Scrabble word list
Frequently asked questions
How do I unscramble letters to make words?
Type the letters into the box. Every English word in the dictionary that can be made from them appears instantly, words using all the letters first, then shorter words grouped by length. You can filter by length and by letters a word must contain.
What words can I make with these letters and a blank tile?
Add a ? or * for the blank. The solver lets it stand for any letter and underlines that letter in each result, so you can see which words rely on the blank. Up to three blanks are allowed.
What is the anagram of LISTEN?
ENLIST, INLETS, SILENT and TINSEL all use exactly the letters of LISTEN. Type LISTEN into the solver to see them along with the shorter words hidden in it, such as INLET, TILES and SILT.
Can I find 5-letter words for Wordle with this?
Yes. Enter the letters you are still allowed to use, set both the shortest and longest length to 5, and use Must include for letters you know are in the answer. It finds valid arrangements; it cannot know which letters are in their correct positions.
Why is a Scrabble word I know not in the results?
The dictionary is a list of common English words, not the official Scrabble lists, which contain many rarer words. A missing word may still be valid in your game; check the official list your game uses.
Does the anagram solver work with words that end in ING or start with UN?
Yes. Open Filters and type ING in Ends with or UN in Starts with. Those letters must still be among the letters you entered, or covered by blanks, because every result is made only from your tiles.
Last reviewed by the A2Z.Tools team against the sources listed above.
