Scrabble is probably the finest of all word games that are played around the world today and it is also among the most famous of them all as well. The game really puts forward a stringent challenge and you really need to be at the best of your mind skills to ensure that you perform at your best in the game.When you play scrabble, there are a certain rules that you have to follow and you must play by the book to compete at the international level. Sometimes, as it happens, playing the game leads to debates and challenges between the players on the words being played. One party believes that they have played a legit word while the other party thinks otherwise and challenges it. According to the rules of the game, such situations should be handled by looking up the played word in the official scrabble dictionary. There are a few versions of the official dictionary available, however, and the players need to first decide on the version that they’ll be using as reference in the game.
Official Scrabble Dictionary Used Currently
Today, the official scrabble dictionary used is the “Merriam-Webster’s Official Scrabble Players Dictionary 5th Edition” that was published in 2014. It is also commonly known as the OSPD5 and you can buy it online or at any bookstore near you. The fifth edition of the dictionary included some two-letter words which weren’t there in the previous edition. These include DA, PO, GI, and TE.
This edition was published almost after 9 years of the previous edition and before this the scrabble players had to refer to that since 2005. An interesting controversy was heated by the introduction of this dictionary as it included a couple of 2-letter words ZA and QI because these words prove to be really useful in making high scoring words. Nevertheless, these words were not removed from the fifth edition and they’re still valid even today and can be played in the scrabble games and official tournaments.
Besides dealing with the challenges, the scrabble dictionary can also be used for learning new words obviously. You have to master the art of playing scrabble by giving yourself the chance to memorize as many words as you possibly can and then playing those words in the game. You have to learn and be witty about which words could be made with whatever is already there on the scrabble board and that could only come after thorough practice with a dictionary kept handy all the time.
Online Scrabble Word Finder Tools
If you do not want to buy an official dictionary for playing the game of scrabble and learning new words from it, it is also possible for you to use an online tool that helps you to find different words that are allowed officially in the game of scrabble. In fact, there is a long list of scrabble word finder tools available online today and you just need to start using a reliable one. Most of these tools won’t just suggest you new words that are legit in the game but will also provide you with the definition of those words and show a few other related ones as well.
You can even use the tool officially introduced by the Merriam Webster which can turn out be much more useful in comparison to other online tools available today. Here you get the option to apply different filters for finding exactly the words that you have been looking for. For instance, you can specify options like “contains”, “starts with”, and “ends with” to make sure that the words presented to you by the official scrabble word finder are an exact match of what you have been searching. It also helps you narrow down your search quite a lot. In fact, you can even use a question mark to serve as your wildcard entry and represent blank tiles that you may have or some other letter.
Even if you use the simplest of online word finder tools, they will allow you to learn new words as you like. You are provided with a simple search box where you can enter your random string of letters or some legit word and hit the search button. As soon as you hit the search button, word finder will provide you with an entire list of possible word combinations that could be formed with the help of the letters you have provided as input. There will be all the 2-letter words, 3-letter words, 4-letter words and so on. So, you can either memorize them for future plays or use them in whatever way you like in the game of scrabble as long as you go by the rules.
Official Tournament & Club Word List
When it comes to official club and tournament play, the players are bound to use Official Tournament & Club Word List 3rd edition. Even this one comes from Merriam-Webster as well and is known commonly as OCTWL3, OTCWL2014, OWL3, TWL3, or TWL2014. Published back in 2014, the Word List too effect across Canada and the US in the tournament play on 10th of April 2015.
It’s available only to those who have the membership of North American Scrabble Players Association – the successor of National Scrabble Association until 2009. This third edition of the word list contains all the words that are part of the Official Scrabble dictionary 5th edition but it also includes words which had been expunged from the book due to the fact that the officials considered them too colloquial or offensive. This word list is available to the scrabble players both in the electronic and print version.
The History of Official Scrabble Dictionary
Both the club and tournament players wanted to have an authorized dictionary to get rid of the conflicts in the word play as the scrabble games were held at a professional level. This urged the development of an official dictionary which could be used as a reference across the board and in all forms of the game.
The Funk and Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary was first used as an official dictionary in the game. Merriam-Webster Inc. was requested by Selchow and Righter for the production of a dictionary which would use only those words appearing in the 5 collegiate dictionaries. They included the ones from Random House, Webster’s New World Dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary, Fun and Wagnalls and the Merriam-Webster. The very first edition of this requested dictionary was published back in 1978 while the second edition came in 1991.
The 3rd edition of the official dictionary came with the elimination of many offensive words and that lead to a revolt from the members of National Scrabble Association. As a result, the Official Tournament & Club Word List was published because it was the need of the hour.
Casual players can, however, decide on using just about any dictionary that may be available to them. But for the tournament games and the club scrabble, the use of this official word list and official scrabble dictionary is necessary.
Offensive Words
Judith Grad came up with some words that she found offensive as she read the OSPD 2 and she requested removal of these words from the dictionary. Her initial conversations with Milton Bradley and Merriam-Webster requested removal of these words and as a result she received responses that were politely negative. The Merriam-Webster’s response was that “slurs are considered a part of a language with all the reputable dictionaries recording them accordingly.” On the other hand, Milton Bradley responded that as a dictionary, it’s a reflection of all the words that are used in the language currently.
Grad then communicated to National Council of the Jewish Women, and they started a campaign of letter-writing supporting Grad’s cause. The publicity she received in the Jewish media resulted in Anti-Defamation League with an announcement coming from the chairman of Hasbro that third edition of the dictionary would not have any offensive words such as racist labels “FATSO”, “FARTED”, BOOBIE, etc.
Generally, the National Scrabble Association members didn’t receive this news quite well as the decision wasn’t a consulted one. As the players mostly gave negative feedback, threatening event boycotts, the president of the NSA at that time announced sort of a compromise. As a result the Official Tournament & Club Word List was published without the definitions of unexpurgated word list.
Fourth Edition
Hasbro published 4th edition of the official scrabble dictionary in 2005 and it contained almost 4000 words more than the previous edition. It also included 2-letter words like “ZA” and “QI” which had some strategic value to them.
Fifth Edition
The 5th edition of the dictionary came out in 2014 and it included new words “GI”, “DA”, “TE” and “PO” as far as the 2-letter words are concerned. Before the publication of this fifth edition of the scrabble dictionary a contest was held over the internet to nominate and select new words that could be added to lexicon. GEOCACHE was then voted into new lexicon afterwards.
Sixth Edition
It was in 2018 when the 6th edition of the official dictionary came up with around three hundred new words added to it. Some of the words in the dictionary included “OK”, “ZEN”, “EW”, “EMOJI”, “QAPIK”, and “FACEPALM”.
Sentence Unscrambler And Scrabble Dictionary
There is a range of unscrambling tools available online today and they are widely accepted aids when it comes to learning new legitimate words in the game of scrabble. The simple working criterion for these tools is that you have to provide them with a string of letters and they use that string to provide you with a list of legitimate words that could be possibly made with the letters in the provided string. Whether it is 2-letter words, 3-letter words, 4-letter words or more, these will be outlined separately. When using these tools, however, you have to specify the dictionary that you would like to use and the tool will present you with only those words that are considered legitimate in the game of scrabble according to your specified dictionary.
For your information, there are a few variations of the scrabble dictionary in use in different parts of the world and a couple of simple examples would be Scrabble Dictionary UK and Scrabble Dictionary US. So, it is important that whenever you are trying to learn new words with an unscrambling tool, you have the right dictionary checked so that you may not end up learning words that are not allowed in the game according to the dictionary that you have chosen.
Scrabble Tips
Even though you may have the latest version of official scrabble dictionary with you to prepare for the games you’re going to compete in moving forward, you really need to have a proper strategy and must go with a plan. Yes, without a proper plan, you may not be able to beat the opponent no matter how good you may be with words. So, here we have outlined some scrabble tips for you to consider and improve your word game.
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Learn 2-letter words
When you are playing the game of scrabble, 2-letter words are considered the most powerful ones that you could play. They usually are the highest scoring words and give you maximum points while still conserving your moves to score the highest. So, make sure that you use the scrabble dictionary for learning all the 2-letter words that are legit and allowed in the game. A few high-scoring words that you could play include qi, za, zo, ox, xi, ax, ye, ya, etc.
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Look Forward To The Rack Balance
Yes, you should be thinking ahead when playing the scrabble game professionally and your aim must be to create a balance among the number of consonants and vowels. It will make sure that you do not have issues making words as you move forward in the game. The ideal ration stands at 4 to 3 for consonants to vowels.
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Append Suffixes like ish
This is another cool tip that is going to land you some good number of points as you play the game of scrabble. Suffixes like ish can be added at the end of any existing words on the scrabble board and they can help you get some significant points with words like bitterish, blackish, childish, etc.
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Add Prefixes To Existing Words
It can also be helpful for you to score high in a scrabble game if you can add some prefixes to the words that already exist on your board. For example, “anti” is a good prefix that could be added to a whole lot of words in the language and you can make new words like “antiknock”, “antitoxic”, “antinatural”, etc. Similarly, the prefix “im” can be used with a range of words and you can form words like “immutable” and “imperfection” to bag as many points as you like.
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Focus On The Bingos
Bingos refer to using all the letter tiles you have in a single go and forming one big word. When you play bingos, it helps you score at a fast pace. So, you should do some planning ahead to play bingos and beat the opponents when it comes to scoring points. A good tip here is to use the blank tiles very carefully and save them for bingos. You will get additional points when you play bingos.
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Use Q Carefully
Q may turn out to be the worst tile that you may ever have while playing scrabble. Even though it earns you 10 points but that shouldn’t actually fool you in making words using Q. Once it is on the board, you may have hard time making new words with the remaining letter tiles you may have. So, it is advised that you should use Q quite carefully in the game. You can learn the words with Q and practice playing them well ahead of the game. There are words with Q in them and no U. They turn out to be really helpful for you in playing the game. Similarly, you can check out words having Q in them but skipping E.
A little planning ahead and following these scrabble tips precisely is definitely going to help you a lot when you will play the game professionally. You will be able to score higher than your opponents and your winning percentage is definitely going to improve a lot at the end of the day.
The use of official scrabble dictionary is inevitable and you have to use it in one way or another. Whether you want to learn new words and strong-arm yourself in the game of scrabble, or you want something to refer to whenever you have to deal with any kind of challenges in the game, it is important to have an official dictionary handy. You’d know exactly which words are legit and which of them you can play when competing at the professional level. It definitely pays off! So, get your hands at the latest edition of the scrabble dictionary and learn the art of making words and scoring high in scrabble.