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Data study

87,984 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 · Updated

280,887
words in UK Scrabble
196,601
words in US Scrabble
87,984
legal only in the UK
3,698
legal only in the US

The short version

The UK dictionary is bigger by a wide margin. Of its 280,887 words, 87,984 (31%) would be challenged off the board at a US or Canadian tournament. The gap barely runs the other way: just 3,698 US words are missing from the UK list, and 192,903 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 letters20%
  3. 4 letters25%
  4. 5 letters27%
  5. 6 letters28%
  6. 7 letters26%
  7. 8 letters25%
  8. 9 letters28%
  9. 10 letters35%
  10. 11 letters39%
  11. 12 letters40%
  12. 13 letters40%
  13. 14 letters40%
  14. 15 letters40%

Hover a row for the exact counts. Source: CSW24 and NWL2023.

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 3,698 words only the US allows

The two editions make different decisions about which spellings and inflections to include. These examples are in NWL2023but absent from CSW24:

What about Words With Friends?

Our ENABLE-based WWF reference is smaller than the US Scrabble list:28,459 US Scrabble words aren't listed in that reference, and412 reference words aren't in US Scrabble. These are reference-list comparisons, rather than an exhaustive comparison with the game's current dictionary.

Method and data

We compared the full word lists of CSW24 andNWL2023, matching exact spellings. Words With Friends figures use the ENABLE reference plus verified additions. 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.