How Our Word Lists Work

Maintained by Ali Ahmad.

This page explains where WordMivo’s words come from and how we sort them, so you know what you are looking at.

Word source

Our word list is based on the open-source dwyl/english-words list (released under the Unlicense). It contains about 370,000 English words. We add the public-domain ENABLE word list, the dictionary behind many Scrabble-style games, and keep only words made of the letters a to z. Only words found in ENABLE are shown on our lists and in our finders and solvers, so names and made-up strings from the raw list never appear.

ENABLE is broad and includes some rare, old or specialised words. That is useful for word games, but not every word is accepted by every game: Wordle, Scrabble and other games each use their own dictionaries. We also leave out profanity, sexual slang and slurs, so the site is safe for classrooms and families.

How “common words” are chosen

We rank words using Peter Norvig’s word frequency list (count_1w.txt, MIT licence), which counts how often words appear across a very large sample of English web text. A word is marked common if it is among the 20,000 most frequent words. On every list, common words are shown first; the full list follows in A to Z order.

Likely Wordle answers

Wordle answers are everyday words, and the game rarely uses plurals or past tenses as answers. So we mark a five-letter word as a likely answer when it is in the ENABLE dictionary, is among the 40,000 most frequent English words, and is not a simple plural (like “cats”) or past tense (like “baked”). This gives about 2,100 words. It is our own estimate, not the official Wordle list, so treat it as a strong hint rather than a guarantee.

Scrabble scores

The number next to each word is its base Scrabble score using standard English tile values, before any board bonuses. In the Scrabble word finder, blank tiles score zero, as in the game.

Wordle solver logic

The Wordle solver checks every five-letter word against each guess and colour you enter, using the same rules as the game, including repeated letters. If you guess a letter twice and only one copy is coloured, the solver knows the answer has that letter exactly once.

Word meanings

Definitions on our word pages come from WordNet 3.0, a lexical database of English created at Princeton University (WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University; used under its licence). We show up to three senses per part of speech, with an example where WordNet has one.

Puzzle solvers and game analysis

The Spelling Bee, Letter Boxed, Quordle and Wordle game analysis tools use the same ENABLE dictionary and frequency data. The analyzer rates each guess by how many possible answers it would leave on average compared with the best guess we can find, and rates luck by comparing the colours you got with the other possible answers.

What we do not use

We do not copy any game’s official word or answer lists, and our tools are independent helpers, not copies of any game. Wordle, Scrabble and other game names are used only to describe what our tools help with.

Corrections

If you spot a word that should not be on a list, or one that is missing, please tell us.

Last updated: October 3, 2026.