How to Get Better at Anagrams

To get better at anagrams, give yourself something smaller to look for than a whole word. Spot a familiar suffix, place the rare letters first, or line up the consonants and fill in the vowels. Each one turns a jumble into a much smaller problem.

Set aside an ending and read what's left

One of the fastest ways to solve anagrams is to spot a common suffix such as -ING, -ED, -ER, -EST or -TION. Move those letters to one side and the scramble shrinks to a short word you can often read at a glance.

Prefixes work the same way at the front of a word: RE-, UN-, DIS- and PRE- turn up in many longer anagrams. A suffix or prefix is only a guess, though. If nothing sensible fits around it, put those tiles back and try a different split rather than forcing the wrong one.

Turn one word into several

Once you spot a word, rearrange that small set of letters before returning to the whole rack. RATE can become TEAR or TARE. With an extra S, you can try STARE, RATES or TEARS.

This is useful when a game asks for several answers from the same tiles. Finding one familiar word gives you a smaller set to rearrange, rather than starting again with every letter.

Check the game's dictionary when a word is rejected. A word can be a valid anagram without appearing in every puzzle's answer list.

Place the awkward letters first

Rare letters such as Q, X, Z, J, K and V only fit in a few places, so fixing them first cuts down the number of arrangements you need to try. Q is nearly always followed by U, X often sits in an EX- prefix or at the end of a word, and double letters like ZZ, LL or SS usually stay side by side.

Take ZELPUZ. The two Zs almost certainly go together, and -LE is a natural ending after a double consonant, as in BOTTLE or PUDDLE. That leaves P and U to start the word: PUZZLE. Common letters like E, S and T can go almost anywhere, so place them last.

Build a consonant skeleton, then add vowels

Vowels make a scramble hard to read. Ignore them for a moment and put the consonants in an order that sounds like a word, leaving gaps. Then drop the vowels in. Try another consonant order and the same letters can give you a different anagram: GARDEN, then DANGER.

Change the arrangement when you get stuck

If you keep reading the same unhelpful sequence, shuffle the tiles or rewrite them in a different order. Try putting vowels together, then look for consonant pairs such as CH, SH, TH or ST.

With TEACHER, holding CH together leaves A, E, E, R and T. Try CH at the beginning and ER at the end: the remaining A, E and T can form EAT, giving CHEATER.

Use one change at a time. Move a pair, test an ending, or choose another first letter. That gives each attempt a purpose instead of cycling through the same arrangement.

Review the word you missed

After using a hint or seeing an answer, rebuild it from the original tiles. Notice which part you overlooked: a repeated letter, a familiar ending, or a word you did not know. That gives you something specific to try on the next puzzle.

You do not have to solve every rack quickly. Start with words you recognize and check their letters carefully. If you want to practice finding several words from one set of tiles, play a round of Anagrams.