Turn a mess of letters into real words.

Separate your vowels and consonants first

Before typing anything in, split your rack into vowels (AEIOU, plus Y when it acts as one) and consonants. Racks with 4+ vowels rarely produce long words — look for short, common vowel-heavy words like AUDIO, ADIEU, or OUIJA instead of forcing a 7-letter play. Racks with 4+ consonants and one vowel, on the other hand, often hide a word built around a common consonant cluster like STR, SPL, or NCH.

Memorize the two-letter words — they're the real lifesavers

Two-letter plays are how strong players build parallel words and squeeze extra plays out of a tight board. The full valid set in tournament Scrabble dictionaries includes:

AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AM AN AR AS AT AW AX AY · BA BE BI BO BY · DE DO · EF EH EL EM EN ER ES ET EW EX · FA FE · GO · HA HE HI HM HO · ID IF IN IS IT · JO · KA KI KY · LA LI LO · MA ME MI MM MO MU MY · NA NE NO NU · OD OE OF OH OI OK OM ON OP OR OS OW OX OY · PA PE PH PI · QI · RE · SH SI SO · TA TI TO · UH UM UN UP US UT · WE WO · XI XU · YA YE YO · ZA

Scan for prefixes and suffixes before brute-forcing letters

If your letters include a common prefix chunk — RE, UN, DIS, PRE, MIS — set it aside mentally and see what the remaining letters spell on their own; the prefix usually just bolts on. The same trick works in reverse with suffixes like ING, ED, TION, NESS, and LY. This is faster than scanning every possible letter order, and it's exactly how the "starts with" and "ends with" filters above are meant to be used — type the chunk you suspect, then let the tool confirm it.

Use blanks (the ? wildcard) to hunt for your highest-value letters

In Scrabble, Q, Z, X, and J are worth 8–10 points each but are notoriously hard to place. If you're holding one of these and stuck, add a ? or two to your letters and search — it's the fastest way to see whether a high-value tile actually fits a real word before you commit a turn to a guess.

Let the score column pick your play, not just word length

A 4-letter word with a Q, X, or Z routinely outscores a plain 6-letter word. WordUntangle's results are scored using standard Scrabble letter values, so before locking in the longest word on the list, glance at the score next to a few shorter ones — the extra points from a single rare letter add up fast.