# Six-letter nouns **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 7, 2005, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/six-letter-nouns/283599 "2005-01-07T17:27:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/six-letter-nouns/283599/1 "2005-01-07T17:27:57Z")
Let’s say I wanted a list of English nouns that contain exactly six letters (e.g., ‘window’, ‘boxcar’, ‘animal’, ‘candle’). Is there a site that will allow me to find them? That is, can I go to a dictionary site and use a search function specifying ‘all nouns with six letters’? ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/six-letter-nouns/283599/2 "2005-01-07T19:17:25Z")
While we’re waiting for someone more knowledgable, how about starting with a Scrabble dictionary? That’ll give you lots and lots of six-letter words, but I don’t know if they put them in any order other than alphabetical. ---
**Author:** ![Thinks2Much](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@Thinks2Much](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thinks2Much)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/six-letter-nouns/283599/3 "2005-01-07T19:23:33Z")
If you could get a dictionary list into a text file, with all the words in a single column, I have a text parsing program called [Monarch Pro](http://monarch.datawatch.com/monarch-pro.asp) that could very easily extract only the six letter long words. ---
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/six-letter-nouns/283599/4 "2005-01-07T21:33:26Z")
I don’t know of any online sites that will return full results to such large queries, but there are lots of word lists available, some with part-of-speech tags included. [Kevin’s Word List Page](http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/) includes one (scroll down to the “Part Of Speech Database”). Once you’ve downloaded and extracted it, you can use your favorite text-processing language [Perl] to display all of the six-letter nouns. For example: ```auto perl -ne 'print "$1 " if /^([a-z]{6}) .*N.*/;' part-of-speech.txt ``` will return all 7765 six-lowercase-letter nouns in this list, from **abacus** to **zyrian**. ---
**Author:** ![Trillionaire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aeb1de/32.png) [@Trillionaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trillionaire)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/six-letter-nouns/283599/5 "2005-01-08T00:11:01Z")
I’m sure there are things called crossword dictionaries that list words (though not just nouns) alphabetically and by number of letters. ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/six-letter-nouns/283599/6 "2005-01-08T04:31:56Z")
[http://www.onelook.com/?w=???&scwo=1&sswo=0](http://www.onelook.com/?w=??????&scwo=1&sswo=0) This will find all common 6 letter words and phrases, but it’s a starting point. The reason it works is because “?” is a wild-card for a single character. Beware, it finds 5-letter suffixes. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/six-letter-nouns/283599/7 "2005-01-08T16:19:22Z")
Most of the stuff I use is by word length and letter position, not parts of speech, since in puzzledom it’s usually letter arrangement, not meaning, that determines a word’s usefulness. Depending on the puzzle type, of course. One really cool book that arranges by meaning, not length, is Stephen Glazier’s [Word Menu](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375700838/qid=1105201391/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/104-6767925-9718363?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), a copy of which belongs on every word freak’s desk. Probably doesn’t meet your needs, but it deserves a plug anyway. 😉 twicks, puzzle editor