About the Anagram Solver
This anagram solver unscrambles a set of letters and lists the English words they spell. Choose "Exact anagrams" to find words that use every letter once (listen → silent, enlist, tinsel, inlets), or "All words" to see every word of at least a minimum length that can be built from some of the letters — the way word-game players hunt for plays.
It is handy for crosswords, Scrabble and Words With Friends racks, Wordle-style puzzles, word jumbles, and for writers looking for a clever anagram. Type a question mark or asterisk for a blank tile and it can stand for any letter. Results are grouped by length, longest first, and the page also shows how many distinct ways the letters can be arranged.
The dictionary is a list of about 37,000 common English words (US spelling) without proper nouns, abbreviations or hyphenated words, so very obscure Scrabble-only words are not included. Everything runs in your browser; nothing you type is sent anywhere.
How to use the anagram solver
- 1Type the scrambled letters (up to 15).
- 2Add ? or * for any blank tiles.
- 3Choose exact anagrams or all words you can make.
- 4In all-words mode, set the shortest word length you want.
- 5Read the results grouped by length, longest first.
Formula and method
The solver counts how many times each letter appears in your input and compares that tally with every word in its dictionary. A word matches when it never needs more copies of a letter than you have; each shortfall must be covered by a blank (? or *). In exact mode the word must also be the same length as your input, so every letter is used exactly once.
The number of distinct arrangements is the multinomial coefficient: n factorial divided by the factorial of each repeated letter's count. "listen" has 6 different letters, so 6! = 720 orderings, while "banana" (three a's and two n's) has only 6! ÷ (3! × 2!) = 60. Checking letter counts instead of generating every arrangement keeps the search instant even for long inputs.
- n
- Number of letters entered (excluding blanks)
- cᵢ
- How many times each distinct letter appears
Worked examples
Anagrams of "listen"
Every word in the list that uses e, i, l, n, s and t exactly once is shown, apart from "listen" itself: enlist, inlets, silent and tinsel. Six different letters can be ordered 6! = 720 ways, but only these spell dictionary words.
Every word of 4+ letters in "garden"
With "All words" and a minimum of four letters, the solver lists every word that needs no more than one each of a, d, e, g, n and r. That gives 21 words: the 6-letter anagrams danger, gander and ranged, five 5-letter words (anger, grade, grand, raged, range) and 13 four-letter words such as dare, drag and near.
Using a blank tile
The question mark can be any letter, so the solver looks for 4-letter words containing c, r and b plus one more letter: crab, crib and curb. The three fixed letters alone can be arranged 3! = 6 ways.
Frequently asked questions
What is an anagram?+
An anagram is a word or phrase made by rearranging all the letters of another, using each letter exactly once — for example "listen" and "silent", or "dormitory" and "dirty room".
How do I unscramble letters with a blank tile?+
Type a question mark (?) or asterisk (*) where the blank goes, for example "cr?b". The solver lets each blank stand for any one letter, so it finds crab, crib and curb.
Why is a word I know missing?+
The solver uses a list of about 37,000 common English words with US spelling. Proper nouns, abbreviations, hyphenated words and rare Scrabble-only words are not included, so some valid tournament words will not appear.
What is the difference between exact anagrams and all words?+
Exact anagrams must use every letter you typed exactly once. "All words" also lists shorter words that use only some of your letters, down to the minimum length you choose — useful for word games.
How many ways can letters be arranged?+
For n letters with no repeats it is n! (n factorial). Repeated letters reduce it: divide by the factorial of each letter's count. "Mississippi" has 11!/(4!·4!·2!) = 34,650 distinct arrangements.