Crosswords dictionaries store word lists and tile information (counts and values) in a highly compressed form that's optimized for quick searches. There is a growing number of prebuilt dictionaries available. See the download page for details.

Alternatively, you can build your own!

B.Y.O.D., which stands for "Build Your Own Dictionary", is a website that allows you to turn a list of words you supply into a dictionary you can use to play Crosswords. This has been the most requested addition by long-time users of the PalmOS version of Crosswords, and there's a huge number of things people want to do with BYOD. Language teachers want to build from simplified vocabulary lists as a study aid. Medical students want to play with pharmacological terms. And some parents want to remove offensive words from lists their young kids will use.

The BYOD site is meant to be self-explanatory. To use it you make a few simple choices via a web browser, upload your word list, and download the resulting dictionary.

Please let us know what you think.

Note that BYOD-built dictionaries are not always usable with the Android version of Crosswords because that version requires UTF-8 formatting for letters not part of the standard ASCII alphabet. If you're an Android Crosswords user who wants to use BYOD please let me know and I'll kick up the priority on updating BYOD.