The word list
SCOWL (Spell Checker Oriented Word Lists) 2020.12.07, by Kevin Atkinson — http://wordlist.aspell.net/. Downloaded 2026-08-28.
Release archive sha256 5587667caa20c4891390c2d42dbb4d5c4c3f41bee77af1457ece3ba23fb859cc.
The published list is 243,304 words. Its composition, its licences and every required copyright notice are on the word list.
The screen list
Candidate terms for the removal screen came from the List of Dirty, Naughty, Obscene and Otherwise Bad Words, licensed CC BY 4.0. It was not applied as a filter: 160 of its entries match this word list and they include ordinary English words a dictionary must contain. It was used to generate candidates for a hand-curated list, and the curation is recorded word by word with its reason.
The checks
- The list is hashed. Its sha256 is recorded when it is built and re-checked when the pages are rendered. A word list that has drifted from its record fails the build rather than shipping.
- The pages are re-derived. After the site is built, every list page’s rendered words and stated total are recomputed from the word list and compared against the HTML that was actually produced. A page that disagrees fails the build.
- The notices are checked. Every licence notice this list obliges us to reproduce is searched for, verbatim, in the built pages.