About & Methodology

LetterSift is a precision word-pattern finder. Type the letters you know, exclude the ones you've ruled out, and sift thousands of English words down to the handful that fit — in milliseconds, right in your browser.

Methodology: computed, never guessed

Every list, count and statistic on this site is computed from a real dictionary at build time:

• Source: the SCOWL en_US-large word list — 123,247 English words, 6,964 of them five letters long.
• Process: each pattern page applies its exact filter (for example, "contains the letter X") to the full list. What you see is the complete result set — nothing added, nothing removed.
• Reproducibility: re-running our build script on the same word list reproduces every number on this site exactly. If a count is published here, it was counted.
• Honesty about coverage: SCOWL is a comprehensive spell-checker dictionary, so lists include some uncommon and Scrabble-style words alongside everyday ones. That breadth is deliberate — a finder should find everything, and let you do the choosing.

Attribution

Word data: SCOWL (Spell Checker Oriented Word Lists), Copyright 2000-2026 by Kevin Atkinson. Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell any part of SCOWL, or word lists created from it, is granted without fee, provided the copyright notice appears in all copies and in supporting documentation — this page is that documentation. SCOWL's primary sources, 12dicts and ENABLE2K by Alan Beale, are in the public domain.

What LetterSift is not

We are not affiliated with Wordle, The New York Times, Scrabble, or Hasbro. This is an independent reference tool built by word-game lovers.