If you're going to be a serious Scrabble player, you need an "official" Scrabble dictionary by your side.  Not to look up words beforehand (that would be cheating) but to settle challenges.  Why?  Because Scrabble is a word-game but only certain words will do.  Nothing foreign, no slang, nothing with a hyphen, no proper nouns.  Basically, only "normal" words.  And those really weird, bizarre words that nobody really uses, but are considered "legal" in Scrabble.

So, when a challenge comes up, I turn to the Merriam-Webster Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary Fourth Edition.  Published in 2005, it’s a bit dated by now, but it’s the most current version I have.  As far as its use - it's simple: If the word's in there, it's legal.  If it's not, take your tiles back and lose your turn.

So how does it work?  Well, like any other dictionary.  Words are listed alphabetically. Each of the 674 pages contains two columns of words. The words are written in boldface capital letters.   It’s a nice font; even my old eyes can read the words (if not, necessarily the rest of the text which is smaller and not bold). Following the word is an abbreviation showing the word's part of speech (noun, verb, etc).  After that comes other allowable forms of the word (plurals, past tense, etc.) and then a very brief definition. Following the definition might be further examples of the same root word, when used as a different part of speech.

Does this mean that this book can replace a "real" dictionary?  No.  Bear in mind that for the most part, only words that are 2 through 8 letters are shown.  That's because those are the bulk of the words that are played in Scrabble.  However, when a word's alternate forms contain more than 8 letters, those alternate forms are included. 

Here are a couple of examples:

CRUNCHY: adj CRUNCHIER, CRUNCHIEST crisp

MEDAL: V –ALED –ALING – ALES –ALLED –ALLING to honor with a medal

Note that both spellings of medaled/medalled and medaling/medalling are shown. 



One thing I have to say – I actually wish the dictionary would stop adding some new, hip, trendy words.  I like my Scrabble games to be “pure” – that is to say – words should be real words.  This version of the book adds a few entries that weren’t in the third edition.  For example = “za” which means pizza.  I mean, really, is that a real word?  According to this version of the book, yes.  And I’m sure there are some college students making a midnight run who would agree.  But I can’t use that word in good conscience.  On the other side of the alphabet, they’ve added "aargh", "aarrgh", and "aarrghh".  Sorry, but do any of those really constitute real words?  And in the middle of the alphabet – if you’re looking for words that start with a Q not followed by a U – they’ve added four more to this edition ("qabala", "qabalah", "qadi", and "qi").  Memorizing these oddball words definitely gives you an edge in the game, but it somehow feels “dirty” to use any of them.


Despite my distaste for some of the words added to this edition, The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary is probably the best option out there, and therefore, still my choice to use, when playing this game.    



Official Scrabble Players Dictionary - Third Edition

Scrabble Premier Wood Edition

Scrabble For the Computer

Recommended: Yes