Official Tournament and Club Word List

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Official Tournament and Club Word List or Tournament Word List, referred to as OTaCWL, OWL, or TWL, is the official word authority for tournament Scrabble in North America^[1]. It is based on the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (OSPD) with modifications to make it more suitable for tournament play. Its international counterpart is SOWPODS.

1 Current edition
2 Word count
3 Other word authorities
4 See also
5 References

[edit] Current edition

Currently, North American tournament Scrabble uses the second edition of OWL (variously referred to as OWL2, OTCWL2, TWL2, and TWL06). This version was created by the National Scrabble Association Dictionary Committee in late 2005 and was effective March 1, 2006. OWL2 was based on the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (3rd and 4th Editions) but includes additional words not found in those sources.

The print version contains several errors which have been corrected on the National Scrabble Association's web site. A digital file containing all the valid words is also available for purchase.^[1]

[edit] Word count

The list for 2006 (a.k.a. TWL06) contains 178,691 words^[2], comprising:

101 two-letter words
1015 three-letter words
4030 four-letter words
8938 five-letter words
15788 six-letter words
24029 seven-letter words
29766 eight-letter words
29150 nine-letter words
22326 ten-letter words
16165 eleven-letter words
11417 twelve-letter words
7750 thirteen-letter words
5059 fourteen-letter words
3157 fifteen-letter words

[edit] Other word authorities

Unlike the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, OWL is a list and does not include definitions. OWL also contains words not included in OSPD because they are considered "offensive"^[3]. Print versions of OWL can be purchased only through the NSA.

OWL is supplemented by the NSA Dictionary Committee's Official Long Words List, which includes all acceptable 10-15 letter words not already included in the OWL. The word list was compiled using Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition.