SOWPODS

The SOWPODS lexicon, more commonly now referred to as Collins or Collins Scrabble Words (CSW), is a word list first published in 2007 by Collins, and updated in 2012, 2015, 2019, and 2021. NASPA has sanctioned official games played in the CSW lexicon in a separate CSW rating system since January 2010. The 2012 edition was in effect until August 31, 2015; the 2015 edition took effect on September 1, 2015; the 2019 edition took effect on July 1, 2019. The 2021 edition will take effect on a date TBA in late 2021.

English-language Scrabble as a whole is played to two lexica, depending on country. This map shows countries [1] according to the lexicon(s) they use. Currently, 48 countries use CSW (green), and 3 use predominantly the Official Tournament and Club Word List 2016 edition (OTCWL16, the North American lexicon), with some CSW play. These countries, shown in blue, are Canada, Thailand, and the United States.

Statistics

• The 2015 edition of CSW has 276,663 words from 2-15 letters, up from 270,163 words in the 2012 edition, an increase of 6500 words
• The 2015 edition includes all of the words that are acceptable in the current North American OTCWL16 word list, with the exception of 59 2-8 letter words, and 1844 9-15 letter words
• In 2014, 8% of all games played were CSW-rated, the remainder being played in the OTCWL lexicon

Coinage

The name “SOWPODS” was coined as an anagram of OSW+OSPD, the names of the two lexicons (the British Official Scrabble Words and the American Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary) that were originally merged to form SOWPODS. The SOWPODS word list is currently edited by the WESPA Dictionary Committee; comments concerning the list should be directed to the NASPA International Committee. The CSW word list contains almost all of the words found in OTCWL16, as well as a large number of other English words from around the world.

More information

The purpose of these webpages is to provide informative and, hopefully, interesting information to those North American tournament and club players who are curious about trying out the CSW game. They do not, therefore, aim to introduce Scrabble play as a whole, but those parts of it that change if one moves from playing OTCWL to playing CSW. Thus, we start with how the game differs from OTCWL, introduce the most useful extra words to know, address some commonly asked questions and concerns, then describe the current CSW scene as it is evolving in North America. Finally, we present links to further resources outside of this wiki.

The sections below follow on from each other in order, but each can be read on its own.

• How Collins differs
• Important Collins words
• Obscure Collins words
• Collins updates
• Downsides to Collins
• Collins tournaments and ratings
• Try it
• Collins links

Please direct comments about this page to its author, Nick Ball.

[1] List of CSW countries derived from players with an active international rating at http://www.wespa.org/aardvark/cgi-bin/rating.cgi . We are happy to add any countries omitted by this method.