TapNoiseOption-Delete removes the word before the insertion point in many Mac text fields. It can make revision faster than repeatedly pressing Delete, but its idea of a word depends on the application and surrounding punctuation.
Try it in a scratch paragraph
Write a sentence in TextEdit, place the cursor after a word and press Option-Delete once. Inspect whether the adjacent space or punctuation was included before repeating.
If text is selected, deletion normally removes that selection instead. Check the highlight first, particularly after using keyboard navigation to move through a document.
Backward and forward are different
The MacBook Delete key usually deletes backward. Fn-Delete provides forward deletion on supported keyboards. External keyboards may have separate keys for these actions.
An editor or terminal can give Option and Control combinations special meanings. When a shortcut produces unexpected characters, look at the app’s keymap instead of repeatedly trying variants in an important file.
Keep the correction recoverable
Use one deletion, inspect the result, then continue. Undo is useful for text edits, but it should not be treated as recovery for commands you submit in a shell.
TapNoise plays feedback for physical presses rather than measuring how many characters the editor deleted. A typing sound therefore cannot confirm that the intended word, and only that word, was removed. For longer changes, select the passage visibly before replacing it.
Source: Apple’s keyboard shortcut reference.