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Official Tournament and Club Word List 2014 Edition

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The Official Tournament and Club Word List (2014 Edition) (OTCWL2014) is a major new edition of the Official Tournament and Club Word List, and will be the official lexicon governing competitive play in the United States and Canada starting December 1, 2014.

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.

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

This edition has 66 new three-letter words.

Availability

OTCWL2014 will initially be available only for sale at the 2014 National SCRABBLE Championship in Buffalo, with mail order available later in August, 2014.