How it works
Worked examples
The best way to see how the pangram solver behaves is to walk through a few real letter sets and watch exactly what it does with them. Every example below uses real results from the actual dictionary this site searches, so you can type the same letters in yourself and check that the results match.
Example 1: a complete puzzle with several pangrams
Set the centre letter to L and the six outer letters to A, C, T, I, O, N. The solver returns 96 valid words built entirely from those 7 letters (repeats of any letter are allowed within a single word), and 9 of them are pangrams, words that use all 7 letters at least once. The highest-scoring pangram is CONCILIATION (12 letters, worth 19 points: 12 for length plus the 7-point pangram bonus), followed by COLLOCATION and INCLINATION (18 points each), ALLOCATION and COTTONTAIL (17 points each), and COALITION, COLLATION, and LACTATION (16 points each). Notice that several of these pangrams repeat a letter more than once (COTTONTAIL uses T three times and O twice), which is exactly why the matcher counts a word valid as long as every letter it contains is somewhere in the allowed set, rather than requiring each of the 7 tiles to be used at most once.
Example 2: a short word with a repeated letter
Using the same A-C-T-I-O-N/L puzzle from Example 1, type CALL into the results (or just look for it in the list). It matches, since every letter (C, A, L) is in the allowed set and the centre letter L appears in the word, but it scores only 1 point, the flat score every exactly-4-letter word gets, regardless of a repeated letter. It also isn't a pangram: even though the word is 4 letters long, it only uses 3 of the puzzle's 7 distinct letters (C, A, L), so the running point total treats it the same as any other short, ordinary word.
Example 3: results narrow in as you keep typing
Start the same puzzle over, but stop after typing just the centre letter L and the first outer letter A. Nothing shows yet, at least 4 letters can't be built from only those 2 and the minimum-length rule kicks in immediately. Now add the second outer letter, C, still leaving the other four outer tiles empty. With only L, A, and C entered, the solver already narrows the entire 47,721-word dictionary down to exactly 2 matches: CALL and CALLA (a type of lily, and, spelled that way, a genuinely valid dictionary word, not a typo). There's no need to fill in all 7 tiles before the tool becomes useful, every keystroke re-checks the whole dictionary against whatever letters are entered so far, and the result list updates instantly, without a search button to click.
Example 4: a letter set with zero matches
Set the centre letter to Q and the six outer letters to J, X, Z, V, W, K, six of the least common consonants in English, combined with a centre letter that almost never appears without a following U. The solver correctly returns 0 matches. This isn't a bug or a dictionary gap, there genuinely isn't a 4-letter-or-longer English word buildable from only those 7 letters. Seeing an honest "no words match those letters" here, rather than a guessed or padded result, is a useful way to confirm the tool reports what the dictionary actually contains rather than forcing an answer.
Example 5: copying a result and starting over
In any of the examples above, click one of the word chips in the results list. The word is copied straight to your clipboard, and the chip briefly turns green to confirm the copy went through, a quick way to grab an answer without selecting and copying text by hand. To try a different set of letters, press Reset all letters below the board: every tile clears at once and the cursor returns to the first outer tile, ready for a fresh puzzle. If you reload the page instead of resetting, the last puzzle you typed comes back automatically, saved locally in your own browser, see the privacy page for exactly what that does and doesn't involve.
How the point total adds up
Every word's score follows the same rule used throughout these examples: a 4-letter word is worth a flat 1 point, and anything longer is worth 1 point per letter, so a 9-letter word like COALITION is worth 9 points on its own. A pangram gets a flat +7 bonus added on top of that length score, which is why CONCILIATION, a 12-letter pangram, scores 19 rather than 12: 12 points for length, plus the 7-point bonus for using all 7 of the puzzle's letters. The running total shown above the word list simply adds up the score of every match currently on screen, so narrowing or widening the letters you've typed changes both the word list and the total together, in real time.
Frequently asked questions
Does it matter which outer tile I put each letter in?
Why did a short word only score 1 point even though it repeats a letter?
Is it normal to see 0 results for some letter combinations?
Do I have to fill in all 7 letters before I see any results?
What happens when I click a word in the results list?
Try it on your own puzzle
Type any of these letters in yourself, or start with today's real puzzle.
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