How to Solve Anagrams Crazy Fast: 10 Tricks I Wish I Knew Sooner

I used to be terrible at anagrams. Like, embarrassingly bad. Someone would hand me AELRST and I’d sit there for five minutes before finally seeing ALERTS – meanwhile my friend would rattle off ALTERS, RASTLE, and STALER without breaking a sweat.

Turns out, solving anagrams fast isn’t about being “naturally good with words.” It’s a skill, and there are specific tricks that make a huge difference once you know them. Here’s everything I’ve picked up from years of competitive Scrabble, daily crosswords, and way too many word game apps.

First – What Even Is an Anagram?

Quick refresher: an anagram rearranges all the letters of a word (or phrase) to form something new. LISTEN becomes SILENT. DORMITORY becomes DIRTY ROOM. Every letter used exactly once.

Some famous ones that still blow my mind:

• ASTRONOMER → MOON STARER
• SLOT MACHINES → CASH LOST IN ME
• ELEVEN PLUS TWO → TWELVE PLUS ONE (seriously, count the letters)

10 Tricks That Actually Speed Up Your Solving

1. Pull Out the Prefixes and Suffixes First

Before you try to make sense of a jumbled mess, scan for common word parts: UN-, RE-, PRE-, -ING, -TION, -ED, -LY, -NESS. If you spot -ING in a pile of letters, pull those three aside. Now you’re working with fewer remaining letters, and the answer is probably a verb.

2. Separate Vowels From Consonants

Physically (or mentally) split them up. English words usually alternate between vowels and consonants. If you’ve got A, E, and B, T, L – your brain starts seeing TABLE almost immediately. This one trick alone cut my solving time in half.

3. Spot the Odd Letters First

Got a Q, X, Z, or J in the mix? Start there. These letters go in very specific places and with limited partners (Q almost always needs U next to it). Building around the weird letters narrows your options fast.

4. Look for Letter Pairs That Stick Together

TH, SH, CH, PH, CK, QU, WH – these combos are everywhere in English. If you see T and H in your letter pile, mentally glue them together and work from there.

5. Try the “Chunk” Method

Instead of looking at all 7 letters at once, grab 3-4 and see if they form a recognizable chunk. Got AEGNRT? You might spot RANG or GENT, which leads you straight to GARNET. This is how competitive Scrabble players process their racks.

6. Read Them Backwards

No joke – sometimes reading the scrambled letters in reverse order makes the word pop out. REWOP doesn’t look like much, but flip it and you’ve got… well, almost POWER. The point is, different perspectives help.

7. Move Letters Around Physically

If you’re on paper, write each letter on a separate scrap and slide them around. On a phone, most word game apps let you shuffle the tiles. Something about physically rearranging letters engages your brain differently than staring at a fixed sequence.

8. Think Common Words First

Anagram answers in puzzles, newspapers, and games tend to be everyday words – not obscure vocabulary. If you’re torn between a common word and a rare one, go common first. Save the Scrabble dictionary deep cuts for later.

9. Use the Word Length as a Clue

If you know the answer is a 6-letter word, that eliminates a ton of possibilities. Your brain can sort through “6-letter words containing these letters” much faster than “any word using these letters.”

10. Practice With a Solver (Seriously)

I know some people think using a tool is “cheating,” but hear me out: when you use our Anagram Solver and see the answers, you’re learning new words. Next time those letters come up, you’ll remember. It’s study, not cheating.

Test Yourself – Can You Crack These?

Try these before scrolling to the answers:

1. CINERAMA
2. CARTHORSE
3. ANGERED
4. RESCUED
5. PAINTERS

Answers: 1. AMERICAN, 2. ORCHESTRA, 3. ENRAGED, 4. REDUCES, 5. REPAINTS (or PANTRIES or PAINTERS itself rearranged)

Why Anagram Skills Matter in 2026

Word games are having a moment right now. Between Wordle’s continued dominance, the explosion of spin-off games like Connections and Strands, and mobile games pulling in millions of daily players, strong anagram skills give you an edge everywhere:

• Scrabble & Words With Friends – Spotting words on your rack faster means higher scores. Our Scrabble Word Finder helps when you’re stuck.
• Crosswords – A surprising number of crossword clues are essentially anagrams in disguise. Try our Crossword Solver.
• NYT Games suite – Spelling Bee, Connections, and Strands all reward anagram-adjacent thinking.
• Word Scramble games – These are literally anagram games. Our Word Scramble tool was built for exactly this.

The The short version? Getting good at anagrams makes every word game easier. Start with the tricks above, practice a few minutes a day, and you’ll be surprised how fast you improve. And whenever you’re stuck, WordUnscrambler.tips has your back.