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Data study

86,972 Scrabble Words Are Legal in the UK but Not the US

Scrabble has two official dictionaries. Players in the US and Canada use one list. The UK and almost everyone else use another, called Collins. We compared them word by word to find out exactly how far apart they are.

Published · Word Finder Pro

279,077
words in UK Scrabble
196,601
words in US Scrabble
86,972
legal only in the UK
4,496
legal only in the US

The short version

The UK dictionary is bigger by a wide margin. Of its 279,077 words, 86,972 (31%) would be challenged off the board at a US or Canadian tournament. The gap barely runs the other way: just 4,496 US words are missing from the UK list, and 192,105 words are legal in both.

So a UK player moving to US Scrabble has to forget almost a third of the words they know. A US player moving the other way mostly just has more to learn.

The 20 two-letter words only the UK allows

Two-letter words decide more games than any other list, because they let you play parallel to words already on the board. The UK list has 20 that the US list doesn't. The US list has none the UK lacks.

The longer the word, the wider the gap

The share of each word length that's legal only in the UK. It grows from 16% of two-letter words to 40% of fifteen-letter words.

Share of UK Scrabble words not valid in US Scrabble, by length
  1. 2 letters16%
  2. 3 letters19%
  3. 4 letters25%
  4. 5 letters27%
  5. 6 letters28%
  6. 7 letters26%
  7. 8 letters25%
  8. 9 letters28%
  9. 10 letters35%
  10. 11 letters38%
  11. 12 letters40%
  12. 13 letters40%
  13. 14 letters40%
  14. 15 letters40%

Hover a row for the exact counts. Source: Collins Scrabble Words 2021 and NASPA Word List 2023.

The highest-scoring short words Americans can't play

These are the most valuable UK-only words of five letters or fewer, before any bonus squares. In the UK they're worth learning. In a US tournament, playing one costs you the turn.

The 4,496 words only the US allows

The current US list (2023) is two years newer than the UK one (2021), so it has picked up recent coinages the UK list doesn't have. A few of them:

What about Words With Friends?

Words With Friends uses its own list, which is closer to US Scrabble but smaller: 28,462 US Scrabble words aren't in it, and only 412 words go the other way. A word that works in Words With Friends will almost always hold up in American Scrabble. The reverse is less reliable.

Method and data

We compared the full word lists of Collins Scrabble Words 2021 (CSW21) and the NASPA Word List 2023 (NWL2023), matching exact spellings. Words With Friends figures use the ENABLE-based list. Every number on this page is calculated from those lists each time the site is built. Scores use standard Scrabble tile values and ignore bonus squares.

You're welcome to use these numbers. Please credit Word Finder Pro and link to this page. Check any single word with the dictionary checker.