How to unscramble words with repeated letters

Repeated letters are part of the puzzle, not extra copies you can ignore. The letters in letter give you two e's and two t's, but only one l and one r. A candidate must fit that exact supply. Counting first is often faster than rearranging the same letters again and again.

Make a letter inventory

Write each different letter once and put its count beside it. For LETTER, the inventory is e × 2, l × 1, r × 1, t × 2. Capitalization does not change the inventory. In the Unscrambler, type both copies of each repeated letter: entering letr describes a different, smaller set.

As you test a candidate, cross out one available copy for each letter you use. If you reach a letter with no copies left, reject the candidate. A word that looks close is still not possible if it needs an extra letter.

Work through LETTER

1. Try TREE. It needs t × 1, r × 1 and e × 2. Those letters are available, leaving l and t unused. It is a possible shorter word.
2. Try TELL. It needs two l's. The original set has only one, so it cannot be made, even though every different letter in TELL appears in LETTER.
3. Try RETELL. It has six letters, just like LETTER, but it also needs two l's. Equal length alone does not make two words anagrams.
4. Try LETTER. It uses the entire inventory. The original word may appear among the tool's full-length matches; results do not have to be a different spelling from the input.

Choose whether leftovers are allowed

With Use all letters off, the Unscrambler can show words such as TREE that leave letters unused. Raise the minimum length if you want to hide very short matches. With Use all letters on, every available letter must be used exactly once per supplied copy, and the minimum-length setting is disabled.

This distinction matters when comparing answers. A shorter word can be a valid result for a letter-set puzzle while still failing a full-anagram puzzle. Decide which task you are solving before treating a result as correct.

Test double letters without forcing them together

A repeated pair might sit together, as the t's do in LETTER, or be separated, as the e's are. Try both arrangements. In banana, the three a's and two n's alternate rather than forming adjacent pairs. Counting tells you what is available; it does not tell you where a letter must go.

Check a result that seems to be missing

First compare the inventory, then check the minimum length and Use all letters setting. If those are correct, the word may be outside the site's general-English list. Proper names and specialist terms are not comprehensively included. See Word Sources before assuming that a missing match is a spelling error.

Try the inventory method in the Letter Unscrambler, or continue with full anagrams versus shorter words.