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.
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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 is based on OSPD 3-OSPD 4 but incorporates "offensive" words.
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
Other word authorities
Unlike the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, OWL is a list and does not include definitions. Print versions of OWL can be purchased only through the NSA. OWL also contains 151 "offensive" words (not including derivatives) that had been excised from OSPD in OSPD3.[3] OWL is supplemented by the NSA Dictionary Committee's Official Long Words List, which includes all 10-15 letter words not already included in the OWL. The word list was compiled using Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition.
See also
References
- ^ National Scrabble Association Dictionary Committee & Its Word Sources
- ^ Internet Scrabble Club word lists
- ^ Expurgated Words. Retrieved on 2007-12-10.
