What counts as an anagram
An anagram uses every letter of the original exactly once. That one rule is what separates this tool from a general word finder, and it is why the results list is short and exact instead of long and loose. Type LISTEN and you get SILENT, TINSEL, ENLIST and INLETS: same letters, same counts, nothing left over.
Anagrams are a classic of puzzle culture. Cryptic crossword setters hide them in clues with signal words like broken, scrambled or mixed. Newspaper jumbles ask you to rearrange four to six letters into a word. Word game players use them to find bingos, the 50-point plays that use all seven tiles in Scrabble.
Examples worth knowing
| Letters | Anagrams | Why it is interesting |
|---|---|---|
| LISTEN | SILENT, TINSEL, ENLIST, INLETS | Four common words from six letters |
| STARE | TEARS, RATES, ASTER, TARES | A favorite Wordle starter family |
| EVIL | VILE, VEIL, LIVE | Opposite meanings, same letters |
| DEPOSIT | TOPSIDE, DOPIEST, POSITED, PODITES | A strong seven-letter bingo set |
Try these in the box above. If a result looks unfamiliar, remember that word games accept many valid words that are rare in everyday speech. ELINTS (electronic intelligence) turns up for LISTEN, for example.
How the search works
Naively you would try every ordering of your letters and check each against the dictionary, but six letters already have 720 orderings and ten letters have more than 3.6 million. The solver avoids that entirely. It only looks at dictionary words whose length equals the number of tiles you typed, and for each one checks that its letter counts match yours, using blanks to cover any shortfall. That is a few thousand comparisons, which is why results appear in a blink. If you are curious about the technique, our guide on how word solvers work explains it step by step.
Tips for solving jumbles faster
- Look for common endings first. ING, ED, ER, ES and LY account for a large share of English words. Set them aside mentally and rearrange what is left.
- Pair up consonants. TH, CH, SH, ST, TR and PL are common clusters. Seeing them turns a pile of letters into chunks.
- Try different vowels in the middle. If a consonant skeleton looks promising, cycle A, E, I, O, U through the gaps.
- Use the filters elsewhere. If you know the first letter, the Word Finder lets you lock it down.
Blank tiles multiply the answersEach ? can become any of 26 letters, so a rack with a blank often returns many more anagrams than the same rack without one. Add the blank only when you are genuinely holding one.
Frequently asked questions
What is an anagram?
An anagram is a word or phrase made by rearranging all the letters of another one, using each letter exactly once. LISTEN and SILENT are anagrams, as are EVIL and VILE.
How is the anagram solver different from the word unscrambler?
The unscrambler lists words that can be built from some or all of your letters. This tool only shows words that use every letter you typed, which is the definition of an anagram.
Can it solve multi-word anagrams?
No. It finds single-word anagrams only. Multi-word anagrams (such as the phrase puzzles in cryptic crosswords) need a different kind of search because the number of possible word combinations grows very quickly.
What does the question mark do?
A ? stands in for one unknown letter, like a blank tile. Typing LISTE? returns six-letter words that use L, I, S, T, E and any one extra letter.
Why are there no results for my letters?
Many letter sets have no single-word anagram. Try adding a blank (?), checking for typos, or using the Word Unscrambler to see shorter words that use most of the letters.
Does it handle plurals and verb forms?
Yes, as long as the form is in the dictionary. That is why a search such as RATES returns ASTER, STARE, TEARS and TARES, among others.
What is the longest anagram you can find?
The tool accepts up to 20 tiles. Very long words exist (the longest in our dictionary, ETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETATES, has 28 letters), but above about 15 letters single-word anagrams become extremely rare.