ryanjosephkamp/english-openlist

English OpenList

The largest open-source, validated English word list for NLP and games.

Dataset Description

English OpenList is a comprehensive, continuously updated dictionary of valid English words. It provides:

• 378,666+ validated English words following Scrabble-compatible rules
• Rich metadata including part of speech, definitions, and pronunciation
• Weekly updates from authoritative dictionary sources
• Version history with changelogs for every update

Why Use English OpenList?

Use Case	Benefit
Spell Checking	High-precision word validation
Word Games	Scrabble/Wordle compatible list
NLP Training	Clean, validated vocabulary
Research	Transparent methodology, full provenance

Dataset Structure

Full Word Lists (data/)

These are the complete, up-to-date word lists that most users will want to download:

data/
├── merged_valid_words.txt      # FULL valid word list (378,666+ words, one per line)
├── merged_valid_dict.json      # FULL dictionary with metadata for all valid words
├── merged_invalid_words.txt    # FULL invalid/rejected entries list
└── merged_invalid_dict.json    # FULL invalid dictionary with rejection reasons

Daily Releases (releases/)

Daily updates with changelog and statistics:

releases/
└── {YYYY-MM-DD}/
    ├── promoted_words.txt      # Words promoted from invalid to valid that day
    ├── update_stats.json       # Statistics for the update
    └── CHANGELOG.md            # Changelog for the update

Latest Update Reference (latest/)

Copy of the most recent release for convenience:

latest/
├── promoted_words.txt
├── update_stats.json
└── CHANGELOG.md

Data Fields

Valid Dictionary Entry:

{
  "word": "example",
  "source": "merriam-webster",
  "part_of_speech": "noun",
  "definition": "one that serves as a pattern...",
  "pronunciation": "ig-ˈzam-pəl",
  "validation_status": "valid",
  "added_date": "2026-01-12T00:00:00"
}

Validation Rules (Scrabble-Compatible)

Words are included if they:

• ✅ Contain only lowercase letters (a-z)
• ✅ Are recognized by Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary
• ✅ Are 2-45 characters in length
• ❌ Are NOT proper nouns (unless commonly used as verbs)
• ❌ Are NOT abbreviations or acronyms

Dataset Statistics

Metric	Value
Total Valid Words	378,666+
Total Invalid Entries	9,275,000+
Update Frequency	Daily (00:00 UTC)
Primary Source	Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary

Usage

Python (Hugging Face Datasets)

from datasets import load_dataset

# Load the valid word list
dataset = load_dataset("english-openlist/english-openlist", split="train")

# Access words
for entry in dataset:
    print(entry["word"])

Direct Download

Download the complete word lists:

# Download FULL valid words list (378,666+ words)
wget https://huggingface.co/datasets/ryanjosephkamp/english-openlist/resolve/main/data/merged_valid_words.txt

# Download FULL valid dictionary with metadata
wget https://huggingface.co/datasets/ryanjosephkamp/english-openlist/resolve/main/data/merged_valid_dict.json

# Download FULL invalid words list (for reference)
wget https://huggingface.co/datasets/ryanjosephkamp/english-openlist/resolve/main/data/merged_invalid_words.txt

# Download FULL invalid dictionary
wget https://huggingface.co/datasets/ryanjosephkamp/english-openlist/resolve/main/data/merged_invalid_dict.json

Download daily release files:

# Download a specific day's update
wget https://huggingface.co/datasets/ryanjosephkamp/english-openlist/resolve/main/releases/2026-01-19/CHANGELOG.md

Python (Raw Files)

import json

# Load word list
with open("merged_valid_words.txt", "r") as f:
    words = set(line.strip() for line in f)

# Check if a word is valid
print("hello" in words)  # True
print("asdf" in words)   # False

# Load dictionary for metadata
with open("merged_valid_dict.json", "r") as f:
    dictionary = json.load(f)

print(dictionary["example"]["definition"])

Methodology

Phase 1: Corpus Acquisition (December 2025)

Aggregated 9.8 million candidate words from 15+ open sources:

• Wiktionary (6.5M words)
• WordNet 3.1 (150K words)
• SCOWL 2020 (500K words)
• Google Books Ngrams (1M+ words)
• Collins Complete Dictionary (800K words)

Phase 2: Validation Pipeline (December 2025 - January 2026)

Multi-stage AI validation using Gemini 2.0/2.5 Flash:

• Pattern-based screening
• LLM classification with iterative convergence
• Statistical sampling for quality assurance
• Synthetic word generation and validation

Phase 3: Continuous Updates (January 2026 - Ongoing)

Daily automated pipeline:

1. Discover new words from Merriam-Webster RSS feed and manual additions
2. Validate ~1,000 words from invalid list against dictionary APIs
3. Promote validated words to the valid list
4. Update full word lists and dictionaries on Hugging Face
5. Generate changelog and statistics

Citation

@dataset{english_openlist_2026,
  title = {English OpenList: A Comprehensive Validated English Word List},
  author = {English OpenList Project Team},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/english-openlist/english-openlist}
}

License

This dataset is released under the MIT License.

The underlying word data is derived from open sources with compatible licenses.

Contact

• Issues: GitHub Issues
• Updates: Check the releases/ folder for version history

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Last Updated: January 2026