Scrabble vs Words With Friends: The Dictionary Differences That Cost You Points
TWL, CSW, ENABLE: three dictionaries, three different answers to "is that a word?". Where they disagree, and which one your game actually uses.
You played a perfectly good word in Words With Friends. Your friend played the same word in Scrabble and got challenged off the board. Both outcomes were correct, because the two games don’t speak the same dictionary.
The three lists that matter
TWL (Tournament Word List). The North American Scrabble standard, maintained for club and tournament play in the US and Canada. About 180,000 words. If you learned “QI is valid” from a Scrabble app, you learned TWL.
CSW (Collins Scrabble Words, a.k.a. SOWPODS). The international standard, used in tournaments everywhere outside North America, and it’s noticeably bigger, around 280,000 words. CSW swallows TWL nearly whole and adds tens of thousands of British and international entries.
ENABLE. A public-domain list from the 1990s that became the seed for many digital word games, most famously Words With Friends, whose dictionary is essentially ENABLE plus a sprinkle of additions the developers made over the years.
Where they actually disagree
The disagreements cluster in exactly the words competitive players care about:
- Short power words. ZA and QI are good in TWL and CSW. Some older digital games on ENABLE-derived lists rejected them for years.
- British vocabulary. CSW accepts thousands of words TWL refuses. If your opponent plays something that looks like it escaped from a P.G. Wodehouse novel, they’re probably playing CSW.
- Recent additions. Each list updates on its own schedule, so new slang lands at different times in each.
The practical upshot: “is it a word?” has no answer without naming the dictionary. That’s why the finder on our home page has a dictionary switch (All, Wordle answers, Words With Friends, Scrabble US, Scrabble UK) instead of pretending one list rules them all.
Points differ too, not just words
The letter values aren’t identical either. Scrabble’s famous valuations (Q and Z at 10) shift in Words With Friends, where J costs 10 but B, C and F are worth more than Scrabble pays. A rack that’s gold in one game is silver in the other.
| Letter | Scrabble | WWF |
|---|---|---|
| J | 8 | 10 |
| Z | 10 | 10 |
| B | 3 | 4 |
| H | 4 | 3 |
| Y | 4 | 3 |
Our word lists show Scrabble points by default; the finder switches to WWF values automatically when you select the WWF dictionary.
What should you study?
Match your study list to where you actually play:
- App Scrabble or US clubs → TWL. Start with the two-letter words and three-letter words.
- International or UK play → CSW. Same study order, bigger list.
- Words With Friends → the ENABLE-based list; almost everything in our default word lists is safe to play there.
And if you just want to win arguments at the kitchen table: bookmark the finder, set the dictionary to whatever the box says, and let the lookup be the referee.