Your letter clues and matches stay in your browser. Named ESDB/SCOWL files load from TheToolSite, and one anonymous tool-use total is sent after a successful search.
How to Use the Five-Letter Word Finder
- Enter a five-position pattern such as A..LE, or leave it blank when no positions are fixed.
- Add required letters, repeating a letter when the word needs multiple copies.
- Add globally excluded letters and any letters ruled out at positions 1 through 5.
- Choose the common or extended dictionary tier, then select Find five-letter words.
- Review the exact count, copy all matches, or copy a stable search link.
How Five-Letter Pattern and Duplicate Matching Works
Each pattern letter fixes one position. A dot, question mark, or underscore stands for one unknown position. Required letters can appear anywhere, while a letter in a Not field must appear somewhere but cannot occupy that numbered position. Every enabled clue must match the same candidate.
Repeated letters express minimum multiplicity. Required letters EE means a result needs at least two Es. Fixed pattern letters also count toward that minimum. A globally excluded letter cannot also be fixed, required, or entered as a wrong-position clue; the tool reports that contradiction instead of silently hiding every result.
Five-Letter Word Finder Examples
Pattern A..LE with required letters PP
The pattern fixes A in position 1, L in position 4, and E in position 5. Requiring two Ps leaves APPLE in the pinned common tier.
Use a wrong-position clue
If R is present but a prior attempt proved it is not in position 2, enter R in Not 2. The matcher requires at least one R while rejecting words whose second letter is R.
Common tier versus the extended list
The default search uses the 3,447 five-letter entries in ESDB size 35. Include extended ESDB words adds 3,019 additional five-letter size-60 entries. The exact result count always reflects the selected tier and every active clue.
Dictionary, Puzzle, and Gray-Letter Limitations
No general dictionary matches every puzzle publisher. Results use the named American-English ESDB/SCOWL extract, not a proprietary answer feed or official game list. A gray letter can be ambiguous when a guess contains duplicates; exclude a letter globally only when the clue proves that the answer contains no copy of it. Otherwise use the position fields and duplicate-aware Required letters.
Local Processing and Reproducible Data
The selected word-list files load from TheToolSite only after a search. Filtering, sorting, query-link creation, and copying then run in the browser. The repository records the pinned release, generation settings, copyright notice, word counts, and SHA-256 hashes so a future dataset update can be reviewed and retested.