The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary [Hardcover]

Merriam-Webster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2005

New edition! The book that millions of SCRABBLE® players consider the only necessary resource. Ideal for recreational and school use. More than 100,000 playable two- to eight-letter words including 4,000 new entries. Includes variant spellings. Endorsed by the National SCRABBLE® Association.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

For more than 150 years, in print and now online, Merriam-Webster has been America's leading and most-trusted provider of language information.

All Merriam-Webster products and services are backed by the largest team of professional dictionary editors and writers in America, and one of the largest in the world.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 704 pages
• Publisher: Merriam Webster; 4 edition (June 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877794200
• ISBN-13: 978-0877794202
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (508 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Board Games > Scrabble
  • #14 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Word Games
  • #29 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Reference

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

143 of 149 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Missing words disappoint April 10, 2007

By NY Wordsmith

Format:Paperback

I was very disappointed to find that more than 800 acceptable Scrabble words are missing from this edition. Scrabble News, Issue 201, which appeared more than a year ago, stated, "Some words may have been erroneously omitted from early printings of OSPD4." It then listed those words, including some vulgar words that had been intentionally omitted for PC purposes. I understood that the vulgar words would not appear, but I had thought that the edition I had purchased from Amazon in March 2007 would be up-to-date with the others--it was not. The OWL2 (Official Word List 2, available only to current National Scrabble Association members) contains all acceptable words but does not include definitions, which is why I purchased this book, the OSPD4. As far as it goes, the large print edition is fine, but since my aim was to be exposed to the meanings of all of the thousands of new words that have been deemed acceptable in Scrabble, this Amazon purchase failed to meet my expectations.

140 of 156 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful and Fun! August 24, 2005

By Jokie X Wilson

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Beyond being useful for playing Scrabble, this book is fun. It might be nice to just have a list of new words, but the reality isn't so bad: you can spend some relaxing time just peeking through the book to find new words and what they mean. This book is worth it just for identifying the first acceptable two-letter Q/Q-without-U word, Qi. No longer must you be able to spell just Qat when you get stuck with the Q at the very end of the game without an accompanying U.

For those folks who want the "dirty" words as well, it can always be agreed in advance to use the current Webster's dictionary or whatever in addition to this book. You need to do that anyway for words with more than eight letters.

42 of 45 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Scrabble and Bananagrams accessory! August 28, 2011

By J. Cole

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Having worn our old Scrabble dictionary to pieces (literally), I was glad to find this one! It is a huge help when looking up those obscure words that mainstream dictionaries don't always include, and since this is a paperback book, it's small and light enough to take anywhere. Even some online dictionaries can be less than helpful, so this provides the place where the controversy ends. It's amazing how many new words you can learn...

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars must have for scrabble players July 14, 2006

By JT VINE™ VOICE

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this Scrabble Dictionary paperback from Amazon. If you enjoy playing Scrabble like me and you have a hillbilly father-in-law like me that makes up words then this book is a must. We play that any word can be challenged and it must be in the book. After I disqualify all my father-in-laws crazy words I like throwing my own words down like "za" that he challenges and then curses when he finds it in the book. Thumbs up.

576 of 696 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Fundamentally False November 8, 2005

By Daniel L Pratt

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

For example, the back cover declares "Features more than 100,000 two-to-eight-letter words, including 4,000 new entries." But there are only about 84,000 such words, of which only around 3,200 are new, even if you treat "entries" as synonymous with "words" in this context.

The front flap claims "All entries are included in a single alphabetical list". If only. While TIDIES and TIDIEST appear together, UNTIDIES and UNTIDIEST do not. REPP and REPPED appear together, but REPPING must be found elsewhere. If you're trying to figure out which of LASER MASER TASER forms a word when spelled backward, you'll probably need to look in more than two places.

The claim that "Main entries include a brief definition (especially useful for less common words)" is open to question. ENOPHILE is defined "oenophile", URSID "a mammal of the family Ursidae"; many are simply defined "a mineral" or "a chemical". However, some are good. GLUCINUM: "a metallic element"?! One of the worst is BENZIDIN, "a hydrocarbon", which will come as a surprise to the nitrogens in the molecule; the spelling has been outdated for decades.

It is true that the book is endorsed by the National Scrabble Association (NSA), and the widely respected publisher Merriam is just reporting what NSA wants. Please don't shoot the messenger. Indeed, Merriam dissuaded NSA from dozens of forms even sillier than the ones highlighted in this review, which unfortunately are only a sampling. Left to its own devices, Merriam could no doubt come up with something much nicer.

The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (OSPD) is a compilation of words from twelve U.S. college dictionaries from the last four decades.... Four are still in print and, as the descendants of seven of the others, contain most but by no means all of their contributions. As a result, pronunciations, etymologies, and full definitions are no longer available for many entries, especially those found only in the source that has been out of print for a quarter century. NSA members like to twitter that they don't play your grandmother's Scrabble, but in many respects they're using her dictionary. It's a shame they can't bring the game into the 21st century.

Although the official rules have always sensibly banned foreign words, about fifty OSPD entries stem from words so designated in source dictionaries, such as DE as in "Charles de Gaulle". In addition there are a great many Scottish words, such as AE, JO, BRULZIE. Although I consider the politest and most accurate way to regard Scots is as a foreign language, a full discussion of all sides would be longer than this review. Suffice it to say that the Scots words are not marked in any way; if you use OSPD, you cannot choose to avoid them. Likewise for foreign words, substandard words such as BRUNG and ET ("ate"), disused spellings, AFARS, and so forth.

Consider the following thirty spellings:

alkalin asswage brillo burlesk carrom dandriff develope enuf enzym
foureyed goloshe humvee iodin janty jurassic lept mayvin naething
oxid pailsful penname quare ratan smerk sorel tramel umteenth vext
worrit ya

You or your spell-checker can correct most of them. A great many more OSPD forms can be added to the list. These obsolete or mistaken spellings are overwhelmingly rejected by modern lexicography, usually unanimously. OSPD is a fundamentally false portrayal of current English.

The cover recommends OSPD for schools. School Scrabble is doubtless a welcome development, and hurrah for the coaches who help out. But with spellings like those above, OSPD should not be welcomed into schools by students, parents, teachers, or coaches. Every year Merriam plays an important role in sponsoring the National Spelling Bee, a task they undertake with meticulous care. In 2004, LAGNIAPPE was in the Bee; OSPD shows only a spelling without the I that would have been rejected. In 2005, a contestant was eliminated for using the OSPD spelling AVOSET.

Entering my sixth decade of Scrabble activity, I have met quite a cross-section of enthusiasts, who fall into three groups. Members of the first group, about 15 or 20 percent of the total, want to play only with words they already know. They need a dictionary only to check spelling, and as we have seen, OSPD is worse than useless.

A second group, less than 1 percent, asks only to be directed to an official word list. Such people should web-search the National Scrabble Association posthaste, where many pleasant adventures await. But OSPD is not official for NSA clubs and tournaments. Instead, Merriam publishes an Official Word List, available only to NSA members. This list contains over 200 forms too offensive for an Amazon review, schools, the NSA website, or a televised championship game. It also contains roughly 200 forms deemed by NSA to have been omitted from OSPD in error by the pros at Merriam, and to be added to OSPD at some unspecified time. These include the above-mentioned enuf, Jurassic, and Brillo, and others in a similar vein. (The trademark Humvee is already in OSPD; in the introductory material, manufacturer Hasbro implores readers to respect their trademark Scrabble.) Another example is Latina, which along with Latino (already in OSPD) is normally capitalized as a routine politeness. But common courtesy, like common sense, does not inform the OSPD.

The third and final group, a sizable majority, likes Scrabble in part to learn new words. But they must be English words, orthographically and grammatically correct, and a part of the contemporary language. Clearly OSPD is not for them either. The money can be devoted to a standard college dictionary, any of which should be adequate for Scrabble.

Watching a talented player score 400 or even 500 points in an OSPD Scrabble game can be reminiscent of seeing a long home run off the bat of a slugger on steroids. It's astonishing that Merriam and Hasbro put up with any of this. Read more ›

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars From the Board Games Editor at BellaOnline.com December 8, 2005

By Megan Romer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Whether or not you agree with the inclusion of many of these words, the fact of the matter is that OSPD4 is now the official dictionary for Scrabble tournament play. If you wish to play in a Scrabble tournament, you must learn them, or you will most certainly lose.

If you don't like "Scrabblese", maybe Scrabble isn't the right game for you. There are plenty of other great games out there. Try Wildwords, it's like Scrabble except it has "blank" tiles which can stand for not just one letter, but a whole string of letters. That game uses a regular old-fashioned collegiate dictionary as its word source, so you won't have to know qat, qi, or jo to play.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Have for scrabble lovers September 17, 2011

By srrogers50

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

As Scrabble players who play several times a week, we depend on this book to tell us what is acceptable and what is not. It arrived within a few days and in perfect shape.