English word statistics
Our dictionary holds 172,823 English words from 2 to 28 letters long. The most common length is 8 letters (28,420 words), the average word is 9.1 letters, and there are 8,636 five-letter words. Below: counts for every length, the longest words, and records such as the biggest anagram sets, all counted from the same word list our tools use.
How many words of each length?
Dictionary counts every word in the list. Everyday counts only the 26,043 most frequently used words, where the average length drops to 7.6 letters: the words we actually use are shorter than the words that exist.
| Letters | Dictionary | Chart | Everyday |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 96 | 94 | |
| 3 | 972 | 657 | |
| 4 | 3,903 | 1,871 | |
| 5 | 8,636 | 2,817 | |
| 6 | 15,232 | 3,598 | |
| 7 | 23,109 | 4,002 | |
| 8 | 28,420 | 3,835 | |
| 9 | 24,873 | 3,324 | |
| 10 | 20,302 | 2,499 | |
| 11 | 15,504 | 1,555 | |
| 12 | 11,358 | 918 | |
| 13 | 7,827 | 509 | |
| 14 | 5,127 | 208 | |
| 15 | 3,192 | 106 | |
| 16 | 1,943 | 32 | |
| 17 | 1,127 | 14 | |
| 18 | 594 | 3 | |
| 19 | 329 | 1 | |
| 20 | 160 | 0 | |
| 21+ | 119 | 0 |
See the words themselves: 2-letter, 3-letter, 4-letter, 5-letter, 6-letter and 7-letter words.
The longest words
The longest word in our dictionary is ETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETATES (28 letters), a chemistry term. The ten longest:
- ETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETATES (28)
- ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHICALLY (27)
- ETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETATE (27)
- IMMUNOELECTROPHORETICALLY (25)
- PHOSPHATIDYLETHANOLAMINES (25)
- DICHLORODIFLUOROMETHANES (24)
- ELECTROCARDIOGRAPHICALLY (24)
- ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHERS (24)
- ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHIES (24)
- INTERCOMPREHENSIBILITIES (24)
Famous long words such as PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS (45 letters) are not in the list: word-game dictionaries leave out coined or technical words that rarely appear in general writing.
Word records and oddities
| Record | Answer |
|---|---|
| Most anagrams (5 letters) | 11 words from AEPRS: APERS, APRES, ASPER, PARES, PARSE, PEARS, PRASE, PRESA, REAPS, SPARE, SPEAR |
| Most anagrams (6 letters) | 11 words from AELRST: ALERTS, ALTERS, ARTELS, ESTRAL, LASTER, RATELS, SALTER, SLATER, STALER, STELAR, TALERS |
| Most anagrams (7 letters) | 9 words from AEINRST: ANESTRI, ANTSIER, NASTIER, RATINES, RETAINS, RETINAS, RETSINA, STAINER, STEARIN |
| Longest palindromes | ROTATOR, DEIFIED, REVIVER, SEMEMES, REPAPER, HALALAH (98 palindromes of 3+ letters) |
| Shortest words with all five vowels | SEQUOIA, EULOGIA, MIAOUED, DIALOGUE, EQUATION (2,459 words contain A, E, I, O and U) |
| All five vowels in order | FACETIOUS, FACETIOUSLY, ABSTEMIOUS, ARSENIOUS, ABSTEMIOUSLY, ABSTENTIOUS |
| Longest words with no A, E, I, O, U or Y | TSKTSKS, CRWTHS, TSKTSK, CRWTH, PHPHT, BRRR |
| Q without U | 29 words, shortest: SUQ, QAT, QAID, QOPH, SUQS, QATS, FAQIR, QANAT, QAIDS, UMIAQ |
Highest-scoring Scrabble words by length
Base tile values only (no double or triple squares), using our word list. Tournament dictionaries differ slightly.
| Letters | Word | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | XI | 9 |
| 3 | ZAX | 19 |
| 4 | JAZZ | 29 |
| 5 | JAZZY | 33 |
| 6 | PIZAZZ | 35 |
| 7 | ZYZZYVA | 43 |
| 8 | ZYZZYVAS | 44 |
A real rack has one Z and one blank, so a word like PIZAZZ needs the blank for one of its Zs and scores less in play. Find playable words in your own rack with the Scrabble word finder.
Download the data
- Word counts by length (CSV)
Free to use under CC BY 4.0. Please credit WordsUnscrambler and link to this page.
Suggested citation: WordsUnscrambler (2026). English word statistics. https://wordsunscrambler.site/stats/english-word-statistics/
How we counted
All counts come from the ENABLE word list (public domain), the list behind our unscrambler and word finders. It covers standard English words and their inflections (plurals, verb forms) but not proper nouns, abbreviations or hyphenated words, so it is smaller than a full dictionary such as Merriam-Webster's, which also defines phrases, names and many technical terms. "Everyday" words are the 26,043 most frequent, ranked by how often they appear in English Wikipedia. Example word lists leave out slurs and offensive words; the counts include every word.
How many words English has overall has no single answer: it depends on what counts as a separate word. That is why we report counts for a clearly defined list instead. More on our sources: methodology.
Frequently asked questions
How many 5-letter words are there?
8,636 in our dictionary. Only about 1,815 of them are common words that a game like Wordle would use as answers; the rest are plurals, past tenses and rare words.
How many 2-letter words are there?
96 in our word list, from AA to ZA. See the full list of 2-letter words.
What is the longest word?
In our dictionary, ETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETATES at 28 letters.
What word has the most anagrams?
Among five-letter words, the letters AEPRS make 11 words, including PARSE, PEARS, SPARE and SPEAR. Try it in the anagram solver.
Can I use these numbers?
Yes, under CC BY 4.0. Download the CSV and credit WordsUnscrambler with a link to this page.