Browse three-letter English words for any letter. Select a letter below, then filter by word type or difficulty. Every word includes a definition. Use the copy menu to export your filtered list.
Short words like these are very useful in competitive word games. They can fill small areas of the board, allow you to play words in parallel, and get rid of tough letters. Since so few words use the letters Q, X, and Z, knowing all the 3-letter words that start with Q, X, and Z can be very powerful. We can't list all of the variations of words that use these letters; you have to know them all.
It's highly valuable to know all three-letter words for each letter in order to improve at games like Scrabble and Words With Friends. Three-letter words fit in small spaces and let you play other words next to them, while also using up high-value tiles. Very few three-letter words start with Q, X, or Z. Since most of these words are uncommon, you can't rely on trying different words to find a suitable one. Instead, you have to know all of the words exactly.
These words are CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words that children first learn to read and write, such as cat, dog, hat, and pen. The Easy filter shows these high-frequency words, the foundation of early reading and spelling. Teachers can use these words when creating spelling lists, parents can use them when reading with their children, and anyone working with early readers can use them, too.
Note that even within the Easy tier there are many words that have very specific meanings. Moving on to the other tiers, the Short words section lists compact words of unusual meaning: adz (a type of axe used for shaping wood), froe (a tool for splitting wooden boards — it has four letters, though). And then there are the words of one letter more than Short that have very specific meanings too: fen (a type of marsh); mho (a unit of conductance); and phi (the Greek letter that is used to represent the golden ratio in mathematics, for example). These are all listed using the Hard filter.
The major Scrabble dictionaries list between 1,000 and 1,300 three-letter words in current English, depending on the word list used to compile the dictionary. The tool contains curated sets of words of all kinds for each letter, often with full definitions, so you can determine for yourself whether it is worth your time to learn a word.
Three-letter words are the core of board word games. They fill in the narrow interstices of the board between other words. They permit plays in parallel to other words already on the board. And, above all, they enable quick discharge of unwanted tiles without loss of tempo. Such players know all the three-letter words for each letter of the alphabet — far more than the few most common ones.
The data reflects the genuine paucity of 3-letter words starting with X, Q, Y, and Z compared to S, T, P, and C, for example, and is based on real words of the language, none of which were invented for this purpose to fill supposed 'gaps'.
Words are classified into three categories: Easy, Medium, and Hard. Easy words are commonly used words in everyday reading. Medium words are less frequently used and generally understood by most people. Hard words are less frequently used and tend to be very technical, regional, foreign, or even archaic.
Yes. After choosing a letter and any other options that you are interested in, press the "Copy list" button to create a list of the words that you see on the page. This list will be a list of words, one per line, which you can paste into a document, into a spreadsheet, or into a worksheet creator. The list that is copied will only include the words that you see on the page, and so will include only words that meet all of the filters that you chose.