# Words With Friends vs dictionary.com

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-friends-vs-dictionary-com/791965>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [July 23, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-friends-vs-dictionary-com/791965 "2017-07-23T21:16:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-friends-vs-dictionary-com/791965/1 "2017-07-23T21:16:23Z")

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I recently started playing Words With Friends again on my phone. One thing I don’t understand – does it use [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) as it’s official dictionary or not? If you use the dictionary function to look up a word that’s been played, it looks like it is referencing [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com). But there have been several times I have tried to play a word, and it tells me the word is not valid, so I go look it up on [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) and there it is! So what’s the deal?

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**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2017, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-friends-vs-dictionary-com/791965/2 "2017-07-23T21:51:06Z")

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[Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) republishes definitions from other dictionaries, primarily Random House, but also Collins, etc.

So the answer is “probably,” but indirectly.

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-friends-vs-dictionary-com/791965/3 "2017-07-24T14:42:12Z")

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Similarly, IIRC, the Official Scrabble Dictionary just draws from a list of standard dictionaries, and includes any word that shows up in at least two of those standard dictionaries. Though that’s just for tournaments: The actual rules of the game say nothing about what dictionary is to be used, beyond that all of the players need to agree on it before the start of the game.

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**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-friends-vs-dictionary-com/791965/4 "2017-07-24T14:43:53Z")

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> [@Shoeless](#):
>
> … does it use [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) as **it’s** official dictionary or not? …

Ahem. :dubious:

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**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\
**Post date:** [July 25, 2017, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-friends-vs-dictionary-com/791965/5 "2017-07-25T15:23:41Z")

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> [@ThelmaLou](#):
>
> Ahem. :dubious:

Posted from my phone. I blame autocorrect. 😉

The other odd thing I’ve noticed when checking the dictionary in WWF is that no matter how obscure the word is, it never seems to be more than a couple of ticks from the “common” end of the spectrum.