How to Check Whether a Word Is a Real Word
"Real" and "accepted" are different questions. We looked up 20 disputed words in four references and built a four-step check from the…
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Category: How-to Guides
Step-by-step answers to word and spelling problems, each tested by us before it was written up: how to catch the mistakes spellcheck misses, check whether a word is real, choose a starting word for Wordle-style games, solve anagrams and word ladders, teach silent letters and spelling rules, and make your own printable puzzles. Every count comes from a fixed word list, as described in how we check words.
How to Teach Silent Letters: A Lesson Plan Built From the Counts
A count of the silent-letter families in a 172,446-word list, the everyday words in each, why the letters were once sounded, and…
How to Check a Word-Count Claim Yourself
Five word-count claims that circulate online, checked live on the public-domain ENABLE list with grep and Python: the real outputs, the places…
How to Catch the Mistakes Spellcheck Misses
A spellchecker only asks whether each word is in its dictionary, so homophones, doubled words and "would of" pass. We tested it…
How to Choose a Starting Word for Wordle-Style Games
We scored every five-letter word on a general 8,582-word list by the letters it tests and the green tiles it expects. AROSE,…
How to Make Your Own Printable Word Puzzles From Any Word List
An animals word search built from start to finish, the grid-size and filler rules tested on a thousand grids (accidental words appeared…
How to Find the Words Hidden in a Set of Letters
Sort the letters, set aside the S and the common endings, pair vowels with consonants and swap one letter at a time.…
Prefix and Suffix Worksheet: Word Families That Stay in Your Round
One root like play can give nine answers in a single round if you know which endings to check. This worksheet sets…