How to Use the Five Letter Word Finder

The short version

1. Type the letters you know into the pattern, with ? for each unknown one.
2. Add letters you know are somewhere in the word to “Must include”.
3. Add letters you’ve ruled out to “Exclude letters”.
4. Read the results. They update as you type. Tap a word to copy it.

You don’t need to fill in every field. One clue is enough to start.

Pattern: letters you know, in position

The pattern has one character for each letter of the word. Type a letter where you know it, and a wildcard where you don’t. Any of ? _ . * - works as a wildcard. Spaces are ignored and capitals don’t matter.

The row of tiles under the field shows how the finder has read your pattern. Known letters appear as filled tiles, unknown positions as dashed ones. If the pattern has too few or too many positions, a note appears under the field explaining how to fix it.

Try it: A??LE, which gives 19 words, starting with abele, addle, agile, aisle.

Finding a letter in one position

To find words with a letter in a particular place and nothing else known, use four wildcards. For A that’s A????, _A___, __A__, ___A_ or ____A.

Must include: letters somewhere in the word

Use this when you know a letter is in the word but not where. Order doesn’t matter, and commas or spaces between letters are ignored. Each letter you type is one required copy, so EE means “at least two Es”.

Try it: include EE, exclude S, which gives 489 words, starting with abele, ackee, adeem, aeger.

Exclude letters: letters the word can’t contain

Every word containing an excluded letter is removed. It’s often the quickest way to shrink a long list: excluding a few common letters can remove most of the results.

When a letter is both known and excluded

Some word games tell you a letter is in the word and that it isn’t repeated. To search for that, put the letter in the pattern (or “Must include”) and in “Exclude”. The finder reads this as “exactly the copies I’ve placed, no more”.

Try it: ?E??? with E excluded, which gives 975 words, starting with aecia, aegis, aeons, aeros.

More filters

Select “More filters” to show four extra fields. They stay open if you use them.

Starts with and ends with

These fix one or more letters at the start or end of the word. They’re shortcuts for the pattern: starts with CR is the same as CR???. You can use them together with a pattern, and the finder will point out any conflict between the two.

Try it: starts with CR, ends with Y, which gives 5 words, starting with crapy, crazy, crepy, crony.

Contains sequence

Letters that must appear side by side, in order. IGH finds LIGHT and NIGHT but not a word that only has I, G and H apart. Use “Must include” when the letters could be anywhere.

Try it: contains IGH, which gives 25 words, starting with ahigh, anigh, bigha, bight.

Word length

Five letters is the default. You can switch to 4, 6 or 7 letters, and the pattern tiles and examples adjust to match.

Reading and using the results

• Results are sorted alphabetically by default; choose “Most points” to put high-scoring words first. The small number on each word is the total of its letter-tile values.
• “Hide likely plurals” removes words that are another word plus S or ES (TAPES, BOXES). Words that merely end in S, like BLESS, stay.
• Tap or click any word to copy it. “Copy all” copies the full list, one word per line.
• Long lists show the first few hundred words; use “Show more” to see the rest.
• The address bar updates with your search, so you can bookmark it or send the link to someone. The search itself runs in your browser.
• “Reset” clears every field and returns to a five-letter search.

Other tools

If your clues are Wordle-style colours, the Wordle solver is quicker: it understands “right letter, wrong spot”. To turn a set of letters into words, use the word unscrambler.

When there are no results

“No matching five-letter words found” means no word in the list fits every clue. Usually one clue is wrong. Check that no letter is both required and excluded by mistake, and that the pattern has the right number of positions. Then remove the clue you’re least sure of. Remember the list is broad but not endless: slang, very new words and names aren’t in it.

Keyboard and accessibility

Every control can be reached with the Tab key. Press Enter in any field to run the search, which also closes the on-screen keyboard on phones and brings the results into view. Screen readers announce the result count as it changes, and notes about your input are read out with the field they belong to.