DEV Community: XIAO FENG

I Built a Free Word Finder That Checks 350K+ Words — Here's What Makes It Different

XIAO FENG — Fri, 15 May 2026 12:48:18 +0000

Building a comprehensive word finder and dictionary checker that serves Scrabble, Wordle, and crossword players with real-time word validation and definitions."

The Problem

Every word game player knows the frustration: you have a rack of letters, you know there's a valid word there somewhere, but you just can't see it. Or worse — you play a word, only to have it rejected because it's "not in the dictionary."

I built WordHelper.me to solve this — a free, no-signup word finder that checks over 350,000 English words with real definitions, Scrabble scores, and anagram support.

Core Features

1. Dictionary Check with Definitions

The heart of the site is the /check/{word} page. Type any word and get:

✅ Whether it's a valid English word
📝 Full definition and part of speech
🏆 Scrabble and Words With Friends scores (letter-by-letter breakdown)
🔄 Anagrams of the word
📚 Related words from the same root

For example, check out hello — it's worth 8 points in Scrabble with the definition right there.

2. Scrabble Word Finder & Cheat

Enter your rack letters and instantly find every valid word you can play, sorted by score. Uses the official SOWPODS dictionary (the same one tournament Scrabble uses).

Try it: Scrabble Word Finder

3. Wordle Solver

Green, yellow, and gray letter filtering for Wordle. Enter your known letters and eliminate impossibilities. Works for Wordle, Quordle, and any variant.

4. Anagram Solver

Enter any set of letters and get every possible word arrangement, from 2-letter words up to full-length anagrams.

5. Crossword Solver

Pattern-based search: enter known letters and blanks (e.g., ?a??e) to find matching words. Supports regex-friendly patterns.

6. Words With Friends & Wordfeud Helpers

Dedicated tools for popular Scrabble variants like Words With Friends and Wordfeud, with platform-specific scoring rules.

7. Word Lists

Browse words by:

Starting with — [wa](https://wordhelper.me/words-starting-with/wa)* → water, watch, wave...
Ending with — *[ing](https://wordhelper.me/words-ending-with/ing) → running, jumping...
Containing — *[un](https://wordhelper.me/words-containing/un)* → under, until, unable...

8. Specialty Tools

Word Scrambler — generate scrambled words for puzzles
Word Ladder — transform one word into another one letter at a time
Two-Letter Words — complete list of valid 2-letter Scrabble words
Jumble Solver — solve daily jumble puzzles

The Tech Stack

Backend: Python (Flask) — handles dynamic pages and API requests
Frontend: Vanilla JavaScript — no framework bloat, just fast client-side interactions
Dictionary: SOWPODS (combined TWL + CSW) with ~350K+ words, all with definitions and part-of-speech tagging
Hosting: Self-hosted with Nginx reverse proxy for performance
SEO: Static-rendered pages with proper meta tags, Open Graph, and JSON-LD structured data — each word check page is its own indexed URL

Why I Built This

I play a lot of Scrabble and Wordle, and I kept running into word checkers that were either:

Full of ads and popups
Using incomplete or inaccurate dictionaries
Slow and clunky on mobile

So I made my own — fast, clean, ad-reasonable, and backed by a proper dictionary with real definitions. No AI-generated nonsense, just verified word data.

Stats After Launch

14,000+ word check pages indexed by Google
Active daily crawls from Google (1,500+ requests/day)
200+ blog posts covering Scrabble strategy, Wordle tips, and word lists
All free, no account needed, no paywalls

Try It

Give it a spin: WordHelper.me

If you play any word games — Scrabble, Wordle, Words With Friends, Wordfeud, crosswords — there's something here that'll save you time (or settle an argument about whether "qi" is a valid word — spoiler: it is, 11 points).

Built by a fellow word game enthusiast. No trackers, no login wall, just words.

I Built a Better Wordle Solver — Here's How It Works Under the Hood

XIAO FENG — Fri, 15 May 2026 04:13:10 +0000

A Wordle solver needs to answer one question: given everything I know so far, which 5-letter words are still possible?

In a running game, you accumulate clues across multiple guesses:

Green 🟩 — correct letter, correct position
Yellow 🟨 — correct letter, wrong position
Gray ⬜ — letter not in the word

After 2-3 guesses, you might have constraints like:

Position 1 = S (green), R is somewhere but not position 2, A and E are excluded entirely.

That's a lot of state to track. And it has to update instantly as you type.

The Approach

Dictionary Preprocessing

Everything starts with the dictionary. SOWPODS (Scrabble International word list) contains ~267K words. I filtered it down to 12,470 five-letter words — the Wordle candidate pool.

This was a one-time preprocessing step. The list lives in memory and gets filtered on every solver query.

The Filtering Engine

The core logic is a pipeline of constraint checks:

function solveWordle(rows, excludedLetters) {
return FIVE_LETTER_WORDS.filter(word => {
for (const row of rows) {
for (let pos = 0; pos < 5; pos++) {
const letter = row.letters[pos];
const color = row.colors[pos];

    if (color === 'green' && word[pos] !== letter) return false;
    if (color === 'yellow' && (
      word[pos] === letter ||
      !word.includes(letter)
    )) return false;
    if (color === 'gray' && word.includes(letter)) return false;
  }
}

for (const ch of excludedLetters) {
  if (word.includes(ch)) return false;
}

return true;

});
}

The simplicity is deliberate. Each constraint is an independent filter — short-circuit evaluation makes it fast. On average, this runs in under 2ms for the full 12K word list.

Multi-Row State Management

The tricky part is managing state across 5 rows:

const grid = Array(5).fill(null).map(() =>
Array(5).fill(null).map(() => ({
letter: '',
color: 'empty'
}))
);

const COLOR_CYCLE = ['empty', 'green', 'yellow', 'gray'];

function cycleColor(current) {
const idx = COLOR_CYCLE.indexOf(current);
return COLOR_CYCLE[(idx + 1) % COLOR_CYCLE.length];
}

Performance

Here's the performance profile for a typical 3-guess scenario:

List initialization: ~0.3ms
Per-constraint filter: ~0.5ms per row
Total solve time: < 5ms

Building the UI

The UI went through three iterations:

v1 — Server-side: Every input triggered a server round-trip. Slow and wasteful.

v2 — React-style: Too much overhead for what's essentially a filtering tool.

v3 — Vanilla JS (final): Direct DOM manipulation. No framework, no dependencies, no bloat.

CSS handles the visual feedback:

.wordle-tile.green { background: #6aaa64; color: white; }
.wordle-tile.yellow { background: #c9b458; color: white; }
.wordle-tile.gray { background: #787c7e; color: white; }

What I Learned

Simplicity wins — The first version tried to be clever with bitmasks and precomputed indexes. The second version just iterates over 12K words. 10x simpler and just as fast.
Client-side > server-side — For a problem this small (12K items, simple string operations), there's zero reason to involve a server. It's faster, cheaper, and works offline.
CSS transitions > JavaScript animations — Tile color changes feel smooth because they're hardware-accelerated CSS transforms, not JS timer loops.

Try It

👉 (https://wordhelper.me/wordle-solver)

No signup, no ads, no tracking. Just type your clues and get answers.

This is part of a larger collection of word game tools I'm building at WordHelper.me — including a Scrabble word checker, anagram solver, crossword helper, and more. All tools are free, client-side, and built with vanilla JavaScript.

Scrabble Hooks: The Secret Weapon That Doubles Your Score

XIAO FENG — Fri, 15 May 2026 04:00:47 +0000

There’s a moment in Scrabble when you realize the game isn’t about playing one word — it’s about playing two words at once.

You place your tiles parallel to an existing word, and suddenly you’re scoring points in two directions. The technique is called a hook — adding a single letter to an existing word to form a new one.

Here’s the data on how hooks actually work, from the SOWPODS + TWL dictionaries (270,000+ words).

Try the tool: WordHelper.me/hooks/

— -

What Is a Hook?

Front hook

• Type: Front hook

• Description: Add a letter before

• Example: B + EAR = BEAR

Back hook

• Type: Back hook

• Description: Add a letter after

• Example: EAR + S = EARS

Inner hook

• Type: Inner hook

• Description: Insert a letter inside

• Example: C + AT = CAT (or CART, CAST)

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— -

The Data: Which Hooks Matter Most

Back Hooks: S Dominates Everything

S — 77,708 words (28% of the dictionary!)
D — 8,446
R — 2,878
Y — 2,703
E — 2,392

S is in a league of its own — over 9x more than #2 (D).

Front Hooks: S Also Leads

S — 3,444 | P — 2,113 | C — 1,560 | A — 1,366 | B — 1,288

— -

Words With the Most Hooks

Top front hooks: ILLS and ILL — 19 letters each. Almost every consonant works.

Top back hooks: TA and MO — 19 letters each. If you see TA or MO on the board, you almost certainly have a play.

Most versatile word: AR — 15 front + 10 back = 25 hooks total.

— -

Q-Without-U: 49 Words

QABALA, QABALAH, QABALAS, QADI, QADIS, QAID, QAIDS, QANAT, QANATS, QAT, QATS, QI, QIS, QOPH, QOPHS, QWERTY…

Most important: QI (11 points). If you have Q and no U, QI is your escape. And you can hook it: QIS, QINDAR, QINTAR.

— -

Strategy Takeaways

Save your S tiles — 28% of all words accept an S hook
Know your two-letter platforms — AR, HO, RE, TA, MO unlock the most plays
Rack balance — common front hooks = S,P,C,A,B; common back hooks = S,D,R,Y,E
ILL is a trap — 19 front hooks turn it into BILL, DILL, FILL, GILL, HILL, KILL, MILL, PILL, SILL, TILL, WILL…
Memorize QI — your Q escape when there’s no U

WordHelper.me/hooks/ — enter any word to see all hooks instantly