Auto Finder (beta)

Find words based on your description

Tips

• You're looking for patterns. Think about the structure of the words or phrases you want to match.
• Be specific, clear and concise in your description.
• If you don't get useful results, try rewording your request.
• If a request is too complicated, it will fail — keep it simple.

Examples

Try the links here to see the results:

• Words that start with 2 vowels and end with 3 consonants
• 10-letter words with no Y that start with B and have exactly 3 vowels
• 5 to 8-letter palindromes
• Words that contain SLATE in non-consecutive letters
• Words that contain all five vowels, once each, in alphabetical order
• Words that contain 3 double letters
• Words that contain 4 consecutive letters
• Words made entirely of 2-letter U.S. state abbreviations
• Words using only the letters in IMPOSSIBLE
• Words using only the letters not in IMPOSSIBLE
• Words that start with a color name other than red (not all colors will be found)
• Words that include the name of a noble gas
• 15-letter words that include 3-letter month abbreviations inside but not at the start or end of the word

NEW: Two-pass searches

Some queries require two passes: first find candidate words, then check that a transformed version of each one — reversed, letters removed, and so on — is also a word.

• 7-letter words that are other words when reversed
• Words containing GO, not at the start or end, that are also words when GO is removed
• 9-letter words that are still words after removing each odd-numbered letter
• 10-letter words made up of two 5-letter words

NEW: Meaning-based searches

Requests that involve what words mean — topics, phrases, or a letter pattern combined with a meaning — can't be answered from our word lists, so they generate a OneLook search instead:

• Words about weather
• Words that start with P about sports
• Words that contain an X about puzzles
• Phrases containing the word LOVE
• Phrases where a word ending in T is followed by a word starting with V

Things that don't work

• Words that start with an animal name (too many possibilities)
• Requests that are too complicated (it's sometimes hard to guess)
• Words guaranteed to make Will Shortz love your crossword (wouldn't that be nice?)

Note: Finder entries marked as bogus are excluded from the results, but this tool pulls from all our sources including pre-Shortz words and various dictionaries. Some results may be unsuitable for crosswords.