Shopping for Wordlists

What's the best vocabulary for a crossworder?

Today’s entry is a resource for my fellow crossword-makers. But if you like words, you might enjoy this little window into the resources that we use, anyway!

Crossword-makers are often looking for word lists beyond what can be found in a simple dictionary. Some crossword programs include these, but it can be helpful to see what else is online.

A crossword wordlist often features scores for individual words, indicating where the word places in a ranking of “words one would most like to see in a crossword,” ranging from “Use this immediately, I feel better about life just seeing it” to “An abomination, including this is a clear sign that you hate your solvers.” Like so:

I put the Ubercross grids together in 2020-early 2021, and some of the most interesting wordlists emerged after that, so I’m doing a fresh search now. I’m still learning the pros and cons of these lists in turn, but here are some links you might find useful. I will tell you how many words are in each as far as I’m aware, having downloaded most of them myself. But bigger is not always best! Many word lists are free…but sometimes paying is worth it!

Christophs Jones’s list. One person’s combination of several other lists, with a few personal additions and rescorings. 175,872 words. Free.

Collaborative Word List. Started by Alex Boisvert, a crowdsourced project and one of my big go-tos for years. 567,643 words. Free.

Crossword Nexus Word List. Direct download, another Boisvert project. 179,966 words.

Cruciverb Database. Pulls data from the NYT and a handful of other respected sources: Universal Syndicate, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, Creators Syndicate, and The New Yorker. At last report, it contained about 148,444 entries, with 100,085 of them from the NYT. That was a couple of years ago. $39 membership required.

Expanded Crossword Name Database. A special list slanted toward increased minority and female representation in puzzles. 2430 entries; more of an add-on to other lists than a full vocabulary of its own. Free.

Peter Broda’s list. Peter’s been gathering words for over a decade and he’s pretty conscientious about scoring, from the looks of it. 527,330 words. Free.

Saul Pwanson’s data. Six million clue-answer pairs with around 300,000 unique answers. Free.

Spread the Wordlist. A newer collection, and getting a lot of attention. I know the creators in passing and have just started to tinker with this one. 293,622 words. Free.

The XWord List. Based largely on what’s appeared in The New York Times under Will Shortz’s tenure. 240,525 words and updating. $50 membership required.

Jeff Chen’s Personal List. Like the XWordList, but with an additional batch of high-value words Chen has cultivated. 271,080 words and updating. $50 membership with additional one-time $200 fee. I used an earlier version of this one along with the Collaborative Word List) on most Ubercrosses, and those two definitely made the fill livelier than the fill I was using before! But this shopping around on my part is long overdue!

Feel free to add whatever I’ve missed. I know I’ve missed something.