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Is it a Scrabble Word?

If you're here to resolve a Scrabble dispute in a hurry, here is a handy Scrabble word checker. Just type your word into the space provided and click CHECK.

When you're done, I'll tell you more about why certain words are allowed in Scrabble and others aren't...

There are lots of misconceptions out there about which words are acceptable in Scrabble. Many people think slang words are illegal, for example, when in fact there is no such rule.

Here is a brief list of the guidelines used for deciding whether or not a word is valid in Scrabble...

Words that start with a capital letter are not allowed
Abbreviations are not allowed
Prefixes and suffixes are not allowed
Words requiring apostrophes or hyphens are not allowed
Slang and offensive words are allowed
Foreign words that have been absorbed into English are allowed

This list of rules probably clarifies some things for you, but it might still leave you with difficult questions like these...

Which dictionary should I use?
What if a derived word, like a plural, isn't explicitly listed?
How do I know if a foreign word has been absorbed into English?

Now I could write an essay attempting to answer these questions for you, but you can be sure this would lead to further nasty questions. Dictionaries just aren't the neat and tidy things we'd like them to be!

Fortunately, people who are really serious about Scrabble have solved this problem for you. In short their solution was this: leave it to the experts. What do I mean by that?

Well, the people who are really best suited to deciding if a word is acceptable or not are the dictionary makers, known more fancily as lexicographers.

So what the Scrabble community did a long time ago was to ask a panel of professional lexicographers to go through the dictionary and determine a precise list of allowable words.

This list would make every single form of a word explicit, so that no room could be left for disputes. A word is either in the list, or it isn't. Black and white. No questions.

Scrabble bliss!

Return to Scrabble from Is it a Scrabble Word?

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Test Yourself!

This selection comes from an impressive vocabulary program I started playing around with a year or so ago. It's based on a huge dictionary of 150,000 words taken from all the 'big name' vocabulary courses and exams.

You can check it out here