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LeetCode 211, Medium. Topics: String, Depth-First Search, Design, Trie. View on LeetCode. Generate this problem as a practice environment: tested reference solution, 13 parametrized pytest cases, and a playground notebook:

Problem

Design a data structure that supports adding new words and finding if a string matches any previously added string. Implement the WordDictionary class:
  • WordDictionary() Initializes the object.
  • void addWord(word) Adds word to the data structure, it can be matched later.
  • bool search(word) Returns true if there is any string in the data structure that matches word or false otherwise. word may contain dots '.' where dots can be matched with any letter.

Examples

Constraints

  • 1 <= word.length <= 25
  • word in addWord consists of lowercase English letters.
  • word in search consist of '.' or lowercase English letters.
  • There will be at most 2 dots in word for search queries.
  • At most 10^4 calls will be made to addWord and search.

Solution

Reference implementation from solution.py on GitHub, full suite in test_solution.py:

Complexity

Tags

Grind, Blind 75, NeetCode 150, NeetCode 250, NeetCode All.
Last modified on August 25, 2026