About
Lexical Word Finder searches through the entire English language (or "lexicon"), determining where (and what) words may be played on the board. Written in C++, the engine is designed to be exceptionally fast, while still considering all possible plays. The returned words are the highest scoring possible, as it considers all possibilities:
- Initial word generation.
- Intersecting words.
- Adjacent, parallel words.
- Extending existing words.
- All possible combinations of #2, #3, and #4. (Including all three!)
Additionally, any invalid words will be brought to your attention.
The only consideration not made is tactical advantage. For example, be wary of giving your opponent an opportunity for an easy "triple word score!" If one exists, select an alternate word of similar value. This judgment is best made by you, the human, not a computer, as it also depends on your opponent's abilities and many other factors.
Lexicons
A lexicon is a list of words containing the vocabulary of a language. If you want to know what words are searched through in determining results, these are (the links to) the lexicon files used:
| Acronym | Name | Words |
|---|---|---|
| TWL | Tournament Word List | 178,691 |
| SOWPODS | OSW+OSPD (Official Scrabble Words / Player's Dictionary) | 267,751 |
| ENABLE | Enhanced North American Benchmark LExicon | 172,823 |
FAQ
Avalanche?
Yep, that's me! I play online FPS games using this alias.
Is a downloadable form of this program available?
Not at this time.
Is the source code available?
Yes. Contact me for software licensing.
May I make a donation via PayPal?
This was not intended for profit, thus it's free! (This seems logical.) However, I decided to start using a single ad to help mitigate the cost of the (rather expensive) datacenter-hosted servers that run the site. The best thing you can do is to just pay attention to the ads, haha. (I too have ad blindness!)
When I change game types, it keeps reverting back to the old game type!
To change game types mid-game, change "Scrabble" in the URL to "Words_With_Friends", or vice versa, etc. Similarly, Super_Scrabble, Wordsmith, Lexulous, etc all work. Your game may not save correctly, however. (Derp. This is on my to-do list.)
I can't type anything onto the board! WTF?
This is a bug caused by a recent update to Comcast's security software, Constant Guard. Disable it. Alternatively, Michael Langevin has kindly created a document to help you solve this problem more precisely.
Advertising
The site's audience contains a high density of smart phone users—such as iPhone and Android—as well as avid game players, especially in the intellectual word game genre. High-profile companies such as Google and Verizon have achieved significant success advertising on this site. If you'd like to advertise, please place a targeted 300x250 image or animated image ad placement through Google AdWords. Once you have completed this, you may contact me directly to obtain the current average CPC and CPM of advertising here, to help you tweak your ad campaign.
Author Bio
I wish to remain anonymous. I'm in my 20s and live in downtown LA. Guess what I do for a living?! How'd you guess! I'm supposed to be anonymous! Yeah, my anonymous humor sucks. Fail.
I'm co-founder and CTO of a pay-by-phone startup. The product allows you use your cell phone like a credit card at restaurants and retailers. If you'd like to become part of our team, I'd love to hear from you. Entrepreneurs love high-risk, high-reward!
Contact Me
Please use the form below; it keeps the spam away. It may be a while before I respond if life is busy, but I may be prompt as well!
Most importantly: Thank you for your support. It means a lot to me. :)
