20k.txt May 2026
(by Josh Kaufman): Despite the name, it often includes a 20k.txt variant derived from Google's n-gram data. It is widely considered the industry standard for "solid" curation.
: A massive repository on GitHub that offers various sizes, including 20k subsets, often used for word games or dictionary apps. 20k.txt
The phrase "20k.txt" generally refers to a specific used by developers, linguists, and hobbyists for projects like password strength testers, spellcheckers, or autocomplete engines. Key Aspects of the 20k.txt "Write-Up" (by Josh Kaufman): Despite the name, it often includes a 20k
: Ordering words by how often they appear in real-world text (e.g., Google's Trillion Word Corpus or academic databases). The phrase "20k
: A more academic approach that provides word lists based on multiple sources (Wikipedia, subtitles, etc.) and is highly respected for its statistical accuracy.
While "solid write-up" is subjective, it typically refers to the documentation or the curation process behind these word lists. The most well-regarded versions are praised for: