A specific feature of the English language is the existence of a large number of short, monosyllabic sounds. Considering the number of English phonemes, one can assume that the number of consonant + vowel + consonant combinations is large, but nevertheless finite. The question now arises whether all of these combinations have already been "occupied" by existing words, or whether there are still "free" combinations that don't produce any meaningful words. For fun, you could try an algorithmic search of all the combinations, starting with the first consonant - "b" - adding the first vowel - a - and finally the first consonant again: "bab." Does such a word exist? Then we take the next last consonant - c - a potential word for "bac." And so on, until we reach the final "zyz." The task is tedious.
The purpose of this page is to provide a shortcut: instead of flipping through dictionary pages, you can click on selected phonemes and check whether the selected combination exists as a word, and if it's an unknown word, learn what it means.
The material for this game was downloaded from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. I fear that despite the effort put into checking the results, an indeterminate number of errors have undoubtedly crept in—for example, failure to include existing phonemes or words. Despite all this, I hope that this topic will prove helpful for one reason or another—in learning and playing with language.
Select a word by clicking on a phoneme in the menu. This will expand the menu to display the second phoneme. Click on the selected phoneme to expand the menu one more time to show a third phoneme. Click on the third selected phoneme to display a dictionary entry for the word assembled this way.
Note that only such phoneme combinations are displayed that produce existing words.
