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How to get the nth word from a sentence in Excel and Google Sheets
Topic:Text manipulationExcel & Google Sheets
=TRIM(MID(SUBSTITUTE(A2," ",REPT(" ",100)),(2-1)*100+1,100))✓
Verified example
Computed by a real spreadsheet engine on the sample data below.
| Sentence |
| The quick brown fox |
| Hello world today |
| One two three four |
| Data is valuable |
=TRIM(MID(SUBSTITUTE(A2," ",REPT(" ",100)),(2-1)*100+1,100))→quick
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Step by step
- 1Replace 2 in the formula with the word position you want (1 = first word, 2 = second word, etc.), or reference a cell containing the number.
- 2SUBSTITUTE(A2," ",REPT(" ",100)) expands each space to 100 spaces, padding every word to a known width.
- 3MID(...,(N-1)*100+1,100) extracts the Nth 100-character block.
- 4TRIM() removes all the padding spaces, leaving only the desired word.
- 5Use =TRIM(MID(SUBSTITUTE(A2," ",REPT(" ",100)),(B2-1)*100+1,100)) where B2 holds the word number for a dynamic version.
Tips
- In Google Sheets you can also use =INDEX(SPLIT(A2," "),1,N) which is simpler — SPLIT breaks the sentence into an array and INDEX picks the Nth element.
Need it for your exact data?
Describe your columns in plain English and get the precise formula for your sheet, with the right Excel or Sheets syntax.
Frequently asked
What happens if N is greater than the number of words?
The formula returns an empty string. Wrap in IFERROR or add an IF to check TRIM is non-empty before displaying the result.
Does this handle multiple consecutive spaces?
Not perfectly. Pre-clean the text with =TRIM(A2) to collapse multiple spaces to one before applying the word-extraction formula.
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