Initial-letter contraction
“word” in braille
Two cells for the whole word, however long it is — 4 letters here, a saving of 2 cells. “word” is 810th in the 5,000-word frequency list this site measures against.
Dots 4-5, then dots 2-4-5-6
Unicode ⠘⠺ — 4 letters in two cells
How to recognise it
The dots 4-5 member of the w family. “word” and “work” differ by a single letter in print and by a single cell in braille. The prefix is the only thing between them. Password, keyword and keywords all keep it, which is four of the 5,000 commonest words against twelve for “work”.
The second cell is the letter w
The second cell is the word's own first letter — the simpler half of this list. The other nine use a groupsign instead.
Learn it with its two sisters
“word” and “work” and “world” are written with the same second cell. Only the prefix separates them, which means the hard work of telling them apart is done by one cell — and learning them as a set is far quicker than meeting them one at a time.
Where it may appear inside a longer word
The rulebook uses it wherever its letters occur, unless another rule limits it (Rules of Unified English Braille 10.7.1).
This site does the same: wherever the letters occur, the sign is used.
From the rulebook's own examples, as this site writes them. With the sign: misworded ⠍⠊⠎⠘⠺⠫; foreword ⠿⠑⠘⠺; sword ⠎⠘⠺.
As with every contraction, it is not used where its letters would reach across the join between the parts of a compound word (10.11).
Updated 27 September 2026. Until 18 September this section gave the positions — start, middle, end — where the sign agreed with the reference translator more often than not, and the translator followed those. It follows the rule above now; the survey explains what changed and why.
Longer words that keep it
4 words among the 5,000 commonest in English are written with this contraction inside them. These are some of them, and every one was taken from this site's own output rather than chosen by hand.
| Word | In braille (Grade 2) | Grade 1 | Grade 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| password | 8 cells | 6 cells | |
| words | 5 cells | 3 cells | |
| keyword | 7 cells | 5 cells | |
| keywords | 8 cells | 6 cells |
The other 4 words under dots 4-5
A small group, so the prefix is already a strong clue.
In a whole book
In a count over the whole of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (26,439 words), this contraction is written 31 times and saves 62 cells. That is 0.18% of everything Grade 2 saves in the book, and ranks it 91st of the 158 contractions used.
The words it is written in: words (21), word (10).
Check your own text
Type “word” into the translator with Grade 2 selected to see both cells, or take the full list.
“word” in braille as an image
Both cells as a picture: dots 4 and 5, then dots 2, 4, 5 and 6 — the whole word in two cells rather than 4 letters.
