Ever ask yourself "How Can I Make a Word With These Letters"? If you're in a hurry, you can always use our solver. But if you want to unscramble the letters the old fashioned way, here are a few tips.
First, look for common sequences of words that start a word (prefixes) or end a word (suffixes). For example, if you notice you have the letters "ing", set those to one side and see what you can make with the other letters. For puzzles, this really narrows down your choices. The same applies to seeing an 'S' in your letters. Set it aside and see if there are any obvious pluralizations of the remaining letters.
Another good trick is to start with common consonant patterns and swap out vowels. Pick 2 consonants and start swapping vowels them around. This type of quick thinking can help you max out your points in scrabble.
About 80% of the English language is pretty formulaic once you're familiar with the root words and common prefixes / suffixes. The other twenty percent consists of borrowed words and oddball stuff that don't fit neatly into a pattern. The neat thing about wordplay is the more you read and solve puzzles, the better you will get. Using scratch paper can really help if you're a visual person.
We also built some tools to help build vocubulary. Don't spend time memorizing the dictionary, however - you'll get more milage from memorizing lists of short words (such as two letter words and three letter words). Skimming common root words is also good.
Looking for new puzzles and word games? We're regularly expanding our collection of puzzles and word games. Check out our Free Cryptogram puzzles if you are good at recognizing patterns. These are famous (or funny) quotes encryped with a scrambled alphabet code - if you can guess the code, you can decipher the message. Or check out our new word swapz game if you like unscrambling words. Flip letters back and forth until you manage to figure out all the words in the puzzle.
Stuck solving a puzzle? No worries, we can help with that too! We offer a wide variety of word games solvers and tools to help crack pen and paper ciphers! We have solvers for boggle, scrabble, and tools to help unscramble words. You can even use them to solve words with friends and the specialized versions of boggle (Scramble with Friends and large matrixes - 5 x 5 boggle and 6 x 6 boggle).
Finally, if you need to make a word scramble or crossword puzzle - for a class exercise, business icebreaker, party favor, or other special occaision - we've got tools for that too. You can even save you work for future events and classes. These are perfect for teachers, students, homeschoolers, coaches, sunday school teachers, and team mom / dads.