Official Tournament and Club Word List 2014 Edition

The Official Tournament and Club Word List (2014 Edition) (OTCWL2014) was a major new edition of the Official Tournament and Club Word List and was the official lexicon governing competitive play in the United States and Canada from 2015–04–10 to 2016–08–31. Until it took effect, players used OTCWL2.1, incorporating the 2006 lexicon plus GEOCACHE, -ES, -ED, -ING.

Where to Get It

Print Edition

For licensing reasons, this book is a members-only publication, available only through the NASPA Store.

Electronic Editions

NASPA members may use the free word study and adjudication tool, NASPA Zyzzyva, to access a licensed electronic copy of this word list.

NASPA Zyzzyva is available for download to Windows and Mac machines at this link. Download and installation instructions are available on the NASPA Zyzzyva webpage.

Merriam-Webster also offers electronic access to OTCWL2014 to NASPA members through its mobile app and website. There are no plans to license the product to Franklin.

Errata

A total of 40 words were erroneously omitted from the first printing, and 47 words erroneously included. The complete list of errata is available through NASPA Member Services. For more information, see our iContact announcement made on October 22, 2014.

This list applies only to this printing of this book, and in particular does not apply to OSPD5, which underwent a separate editorial process.

Effective Date

OTCWL was originally scheduled to take effect on December 1, 2014. At its August 9 meeting, the Advisory Board ruled that the effective date for the new edition would be delayed until two months after electronic study and word judge software become available. The Board ruled on February 7 that the effective date would be April 10, 2015.

History

Work began on OTCWL2014 soon after the establishment of NASPA in 2009, with NASPA and Merriam-Webster negotiating the scope of the changes involved, including the new word references to be used. Then lexicographers from both organizations started working in parallel, with the MW team searching for suitable words that had been added to the MW database since the last edition, and the NASPA Dictionary Committee (DC) looking for new words in the Oxford College Dictionary, 2nd edition, and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd edition.

In early 2014, the DC finished its work, which also became the basis for the Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary's 5th edition, used in school and recreational play.

OTCWL2014 is the third in the OTCWL series, and its working title was OWL3. The name was changed however, due to two concerns. One was that with the inclusion of longer words of 10–15 letters, the nature of the book had fundamentally changed; the other was that the name of the first two volumes had been prefaced by the name of our predecessor organization, the NSA, and that our new book therefore technically had a different name.

Changes

This edition sees new words from three sources:

• Merriam-Webster's database (essentially, their 11th Collegiate Dictionary)
• Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd edition
• Oxford College Dictionary, 2nd edition

It includes for the first time words of up to 15 letters, which were formally only available separately in the Long List

It includes almost 9,000 words that will be newly acceptable in competitive play. The more widely publicized figure of 5,000 new words refers to those that are being added to the shorter OSPD5. 51% of the new words are coincidentally found in the international CSW2012 lexicon; the rest are not.

No words have been deleted.

The following two-letter words are new to this edition: DA GI PO TE.

The following new three-letter words are back hooks for two-letter words: DAS DEP DOH EMO EST FAH GIF GIS HOM HOO LAH LOR MAM MEH MES MMM MOI MUX NAV NUG OIK OMA OPA ORG OWT PAK POS REZ SHO SIG SOC SOH TEC TES TIX TIZ UMS UNI YAS YER YEZ.

This edition has 66 new three-letter words.