Scrabble Word Finder is a helpful tool for Scrabble® players — both on a traditional board and Scrabble Go fans. By entering your letter tiles in the search box, Scrabble Word Finder finds the best cheats and high scoring words instantly. The advanced options are intuitive, and easy to use, for seasoned pros and newcomers alike.
Ultimate Scrabble Word-Finder and Game Guide
“What words can I make with these letters?” This is the constant question when trying to win Scrabble. A word cheat tool is a handy thing that can help you unscramble letters to make words. With letters on your tray that are hard to use, like X, Z, Q, or nothing but vowels, it can be almost impossible to figure something out without a Scrabble word-finder cheat! Of course, “Scrabble cheat” may be the wrong way to think about it; it’s more like Scrabble word-search help. This powerful tool allows you to train your brain, build your vocabulary muscles, become a master Scrabble anagram solver, impress friends, strike fear into the hearts of your enemies, AND, naturally, learn some new words. Use our free Scrabble solver with blank tiles or question marks to unscramble words, cheat with permission, or just become better at the game!
Besides our ultimate word unscrambler tool, we also have some other helpful tips and tricks to help you win Scrabble®. Word-help searches for common problems like “two-letter scrabble words” and “words that start with Q” are listed here, and we’re also going to go into some Scrabble rules, a short history of the board game, some of the top strategies, and the best words for winning. We’ll answer any common questions you might have about the classic word game. Solver tools let you unscramble words, finder searches can help you solve specific problems, and all of our information can help you become the ultimate Scrabble champion!
50 Scrabble Words to Win With (Infographic)
You might already be an expert Scrabble word finder, sitting next to your Scrabble dictionary and looking up the definition whenever you come across a word you don’t know, but an essential piece of the game is something unrelated to your vocabulary: the strategy. You have to know the rules, so you don’t accidentally make a big mistake in Scrabble® — you don’t want to cheat or perform an illegal move. You also need to know some of the special tips for getting the most points possible! See a rundown in the next section.
A Short Timeline of the Scrabble Board Game
How, why, when, and where did Scrabble originate? Americans weren’t always obsessed with the question, “What do these letters spell?” A few people with ingenuity in New York in the 1930s and ’40s developed the game we now know and love. Here’s a brief Scrabble timeline:
- 1930s: During the Great Depression, when Scrabble was invented, an unemployed architect from Poughkeepsie, New York, named Alfred Mosher Butts begins designing the popular game, which he imagines as a combination of a board game, number game, and crossword puzzle. As urban legend has it, he chose the frequency of the game’s tiles and their values by counting up the letters on the front page of The New York Times. Funny enough, he reportedly did not like to spell.
- 1948: After selling the game as “Lexiko” and then as “Criss-Cross Words,” Butts hands the reins to a New Yorker named James Brunot to mass-produce the game. Brunot comes up with a new color scheme as well as the now-famous name “Scrabble.” The game is trademarked in this year.
Fun Fact: The word “scrabble” is a real word; it means “to scratch, claw, or grope about clumsily or frantically.” You can play the word scrabble in the game Scrabble if you have the right tiles!
- 1949:Brunot and his family rent an abandoned schoolhouse in Dodgington, Connecticut, to hand-produce the game. They reportedly make 2,400 sets but lose $450.
- 1950s: Scrabble explodes in popularity when Jack Straus of Macy’s goes on vacation and discovers the game, deciding he wants to sell it in Macy’s stores.
- 1952: The game is licensed to and manufactured by the Selchow & Righter Company.
- 1953: Some of the rules, like parallel words and the effects of premium squares, are clarified.
- 1973: The first tournaments begin, unofficially at first.
- 1976: The rules are updated again to make clear who goes first, whether a player can pass their turn, and the final scoring.
- 1978: The first national tournament is held, the North American Invitational.
- 1984: Scrabble becomes a game show on NBC, running until 1990.
- 1986: Selchow & Righter is sold to COLECO Industries.
- 1989: COLECO Industries and its games are sold to today’s owner, Hasbro Inc.
- 1991: The World Scrabble Championship (WSC) officially begins.
- 1999: There is another major rule change, making clear some of the rules around challenges.
- 2003: The first National School Scrabble Championship takes place in Boston.
- 2004: The game is inducted in the National Toy Hall of Fame.
- 2009: The competing online game Words With Friends is released and is an overnight success.
The Basics of the Official Scrabble® Rules: How to Play
One might be surprised that the official Scrabble® rules are fairly sparse. But don’t be fooled: It’s deceptively complex, with special championship or tournament rules and many different examples of creative house rules. What are the Scrabble rules newbies need to know in order to play? Here are some of the absolute basics of how to play Scrabble:
- Which words are officially allowed? There is a sanctioned dictionary produced by Merriam-Webster: the official Scrabble dictionary, online or in print. You can also check the word against the official Hasbro Scrabble page. It’s recommended to officially decide on a game dictionary before the game begins.
- Which words are not allowed? Some types of words are not allowed, like foreign words that do not appear in official English-language dictionaries, abbreviations, suffixes, prefixes, hyphenated words, any word requiring an apostrophe, and proper nouns (or any word ordinarily requiring a capital letter).
- Which Scrabble letter is worth the most? Q and Z are both worth 10 points and are the highest-point letters in Scrabble. Here’s how the rest of the letters rank in terms of Scrabble points:
— 10 Points: Q, Z
— 8 Points: J, X
— 5 Points: K
— 4 Points: F, H, V, W, Y
— 3 Points: B, C, M, P
— 2 Points: D, G
— 1 Points: A, E, I, L, N, O, S, T, R, U - In Scrabble, can you make two words? Yes and no. When putting down new tiles, you must stick to placing tiles in one direction and stick to the row or column you started with. You can add letters both before and after an existing word in a single turn, but it must be going in the same direction to make a single word. But in Scrabble, can you add to a word and end up making more than one word? Yes, you can; the process is colloquially called “hooking” or “parallel words.” With parallel words, you might be able to complete and score points for several words, not just two. Basically, there are three main ways to form new words in Scrabble:
— You can add more letters to a word that’s already been placed on the board.
— You can place a word at a right angle, using one of the letters already on the board or adding a letter to an existing word.
— You can place a complete word parallel to a word already on the board, as long as the adjacent letters all form complete words. - In traditional Scrabble®, how many players can play? The traditional board game is for two to four players.
- In traditional Scrabble®, who goes first? After setting up the board and racks and deciding on a dictionary and any house rules, each player draws one tile from the pouch, and the player with the letter closest to “A” goes first; the second player is the one to that person’s left. Next, put the letters back into the pouch and mix them up. Then, each player draws seven letters to place on their rack. The first player needs to place a word on the board that crosses the square in the middle. That’s how Scrabble starts! Then, they should add up their score and draw tiles to replace the ones they played before the turn passes to the next player.
- How does the game end? There is sometimes confusion about how Scrabble ends. The game ends when all of the letters have been drawn and one of the players uses their last letter (or when all plays possible have been made). When Scrabble ends, players may double-check their scoring, paying attention to the bonuses on the grid itself, and then, they must subtract the values of their unplayed letters from their score. If a player ends the game with an empty rack, they should add the values of everyone else’s unplayed letters to their score. Then, the highest point total decides the winner of the game.
- When you’re playing Scrabble®, when you can’t go, what’s allowed? The official rules allow you to pass your turn and use it to exchange “all, some, or none” of the letters you have. This can slow down gameplay, so some people’s house rules allow the use of an online Scrabble word-maker tool like ours along with some sort of point penalty. (Players will definitely want to agree to this beforehand!) This may be a good idea to speed things along if you’re playing with young or new players who want to learn the game and have fun. For instance, if you’re a parent trying to expand your child’s vocabulary, using a free Scrabble word-builder and then going over what the word is and its definition might be a good idea!
- Could I be playing the game wrong? Firstly, obviously, it’s important to have fun, so if you’re all flustered, consider taking a short break. But one common mistake a lot of players make is not picking a Scrabble word dictionary to use at the beginning of the game. That makes challenges hard later! You might even want to allow it to be used as a reference throughout the same for someone who is new to Scrabble®. Cheat tools like a Scrabble word-checker should definitely not be used without the other players knowing about it, though. Often, casual players are fine with someone new using a Scrabble helper, but absolutely ask permission before looking for a hint: You want to be known as the one who wins, not the one who cheats! And lastly, make sure you understand the rules about parallels. If you make a horizontal word that makes sense but one of the vertical words isn’t a word, you can’t place it.
It’s important to point out that there are several special rules in Scrabble®; for instance, you can get a 50-point bonus if you use all seven of your tiles in one turn (called a “bingo”). You can also get extra points by using bonus squares on the board, including the coveted “triple-triple,” when you play a word covering two triple word score squares. The special squares are double letter (DL), triple letter (TL), double word (DW), and triple word (TW). Bluffing is also allowed; it’s OK to play a fake word if you can get away with it! But your opponents can challenge a word if they think it’s fake, and if you’re caught, you’ll face a penalty. (Maybe don’t risk it if they already have a Scrabble dictionary handy!)
The Highest-Scoring Scrabble Word (and Other Amazing Scrabble Moves)
What Is the Highest-Scoring Scrabble Word in History?
It’s “caziques,” which is a variant of “cacique,” meaning “a native Indian chief in areas dominated primarily by Spanish culture.” It’s also a type of bird. On their own, the letters add up to 28 points, which isn’t too shabby, but in 1982, Karl Khoshnaw landed his Q on the double letter score box, his word landed on a triple-triple, and he got a 50-point bingo bonus, resulting in a total of 392 points.
The game has been full of tricky moves like that; just check the official NASPA records. Here are some of the other best Scrabble words and moves played in the game’s history as well as the latest Scrabble champions!
Scrabble & Scrabble Go Tips and Tricks: Sneaky Strategies
As you can see from the highest-scoring Scrabble words, a huge vocabulary isn’t necessarily the secret to winning games. Being a master of placement is how to win at Scrabble. Can’t make a word? Chances are decent that you can pluralize one, add a suffix, or do something sneaky instead. Here are some other tips for winning Scrabble every time you play:
Tip #1: Aim to Get a Bingo
It’s 50 points; that’s nothing to sneeze at! You get a Scrabble bingo when you use all seven of the letters on your rack at once. Use our Scrabble word generator to practice figuring out seven-letter words and eight-letter words that will let you get rid of everything at once. This is a great reason to hang onto blank tiles as well.
Tip #2: Become a Master at “Hooking”
In Scrabble®, hooking is the practice of adding a letter to a word already on the board (usually an S) and then using that one letter to build a new word in the opposite direction. For example, you could add an “S” to the end of “hat” to create “hats” and then use the “S” to write out a whole new word, like “shield.” What’s important to remember is that once you pick a direction to drop letters in, you must keep to that same column or row.
Tip #3: Memorize High-Scoring Two-Letter Words for Parallel Words
Those semi-annoying words like aa, qi, xi, xu, ja, and ax are absolutely vital to your late-game performance, when there’s often less space available, especially if you’re planning on doing a parallel play. Parallels in Scrabble are sort of like the practice of hooking gone extreme: You can add a whole word parallel to another word, as long as the combination of letters line up to form words themselves. For example, if the word “zit” is on the board horizontally, you could add the word “at” horizontally underneath it, forming both “za” and “it” vertically. This practice can rake in a bunch of points later in the game!
Tip #4: Have Backup Words in Mind for Tough Situations
If you have a Q, the urge might be to hang onto it forever until you get a U, but it’s important to remember that all unplayed letters are counted against you in the end. A Q tile is worth 10 points, so that would take 10 points off of your score! Sometimes, you need to figure out what to do with a Q quick, and the same goes for Z, which is also worth 10 points. Use our word scramble finder tool to figure out words ahead of time so you’re prepared for tricky situations, like when you have a Q without a U.
Tip #5: Pay Close Attention to the Board Itself
Remember if you’re a Words With Friends fan that the board for Scrabble is very different! Things are arranged differently so you’ll need to develop a strategy. For instance, it’s really important to keep in mind that you can get a “triple-triple.” According to the rules, “If a word is formed that covers two premium word squares, the score is doubled and then re-doubled (4 times the letter count) or tripled and then re-tripled (9 times the letter count).” Combining that with a powerful letter like Z, Q, or J can result in a ton of points, especially if you happen to get a bingo at the same time!
Scrabble FAQs
Here are some more interesting facts about one of America’s favorite board games.
Who Manufactures Scrabble?
Hasbro Inc. manufactures it within the U.S. and Canada, and Mattel manufactures it abroad.
Who Decides Scrabble Words?
Two main word lists exist: the Official Tournament and Club Word List (aka OWL or TWL) for players within North America and Collins Scrabble Words (aka CSW or SOWPODS) for players outside of the U.S. and Canada. There are some small differences. It may be odd, but this is a surprisingly political question, with some offensive words being removed from the OWL and a great deal of stress being caused by new versions.
The OWL is typically based on the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and the CSW is based on the Collins dictionary.
At the end of the day, though, who decides Scrabble words is you, the player: In the rules, it states that players should collectively decide at the start of the game which dictionary they’ll be checking during challenges. If you as a group, prefer the Oxford dictionary, for instance, you simply need to agree beforehand.
How Many Tiles in Scrabble Are There?
There are 100 total tiles in a game of Scrabble. If you feel like you’re missing some, feel free to count them up — there should be 98 letters and two blank tiles.
Here’s how many tiles there are for each letter in Scrabble:
- 12 tiles: E
- 9 tiles: A, I
- 8 tiles: O
- 6 tiles: N, R, T
- 4 tiles: D, L, S, U
- 3 tiles: G
- 2 tiles: B, C, F, H, M, P, V, W, Y, Blanks
- 1 tile: J, K, Q, X, Z
If a few have come up missing, you can often find replacement tiles online on sites like Etsy or Amazon. Also, you can use this list to make your own DIY Scrabble board, like this hardwood version or this magnetic board.
Can You Play Online? What is Scrabble Go?
One of the most popular apps for playing a Scrabble-like game is Words With Friends produced by Zynga, though there are differences between Words With Friends and traditional Scrabble. (For example, there’s no 50-point bonus in Words With Friends, and the board layout is different.) Some prefer the official Scrabble app produced by Scopely. There is also an official Facebook version of the game.
Why Is Scrabble Good for Your Brain?
Incredibly, the effects of playing Scrabble have been studied a great deal. Researchers have found that expert Scrabble players use different parts of their brains than non-experts, relying more on visual perception, and scientists hope that these discoveries mean that a fun word game like this one can be helpful to people with neurological degenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s disease. Scrabble® is also praised as a fun word game for kids looking to work on their vocabulary and spelling, increase game skills, and practice thinking critically. But engaging people and bringing them together in a friendly and competitive way is why Scrabble® is important to us.
Is vi a scrabble word?
Vi is not a Scrabble word in English. Vi does not have a dictionary definition and is not included in the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. If vi was a Scrabble word, it would be worth five points. There are 300+ alternative Scrabble words that begin, end, or include the two letters,”vi.”
In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about vi as a Scrabble word, including definitions, examples, and valid alternatives.
(This post may have afilliate links. Please see my full disclosure)
In the game of Scrabble, there are only certain words that are allowed to be played.
These words are all found in the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. Vi is not found in this dictionary and, therefore, it is not an official word in Scrabble.
There are no exceptions (when following the official English rules).
You can only use vi if you are not following the official rules of the game or playing in another language. Some people might go by house rules that allow for vi to be played, but this is not standard.
There are a few different languages that vi appears in, but these are not English.
Therefore, vi is not an official English Scrabble word with legal use in the game.
Is Vi a Scrabble Word in Other Languages?
Just because vi isn’t a valid Scrabble word in English doesn’t mean that it isn’t a legal word in other languages.
Is vi a valid scrabble word in other languages?
Vi is a Scrabble word in four other languages. Vi is a legal and official Scrabble word in Italian, Spanish, Danish, and Serbian. Vi is not a valid Scrabble word in any other language.
Here is what vi means in other languages:
- In Italian, vi means “you”
- In Spanish, vi means “saw”
- In Danish, vi means “we”
- In Serbian, vi means “you”
Therefore, if you play Scrabble internationally, online, or in any of these languages, then vi is a valid word in Scrabble.
Here is a good video that also talks about, “Is Vi a Scrabble word?” in other languages:
Vi Scrabble Word Scoring
According to the official Scrabble rules, vi is equal to zero.
In other words, vi earns you no points in the game. If vi was a valid word in Scrabble, the “V” would equal four points and the “I” would equal one point.
Therefore, vi would earn you a total of five points.
Top 7 Vi Scrabble Word Builds
If you have the letters “V” and “I” in your rack, here are the top 7 easy builds.
If you’re looking for the 300 alternatives, skip to the next section. Otherwise, here are fast builds to clear your rack.
Top 7 Scrabble word builds with “vi” chart:
VI Scrabble Builds | Game Points |
---|---|
Via | 6 |
Vid | 7 |
Vie | 6 |
Vig | 7 |
Vim | 8 |
Vin | 6 |
Vis | 6 |
Therefore, Vim is your best bet for the most points for the least amount of effort.
300 Vi Scrabble Word Alternatives
To help you use “vi” in the game, here is a massive list of 300 alternative Scrabble words that use the letters.
For easy reading, I’ve divided the massive number of alternate words into three categories.
Those categories are:
- Scrabble words that begin with Vi
- Scrabble words that include Vi
- Scrabble words that end with Vi
By the way, I went through the painstaking process of checking each and every one of these 300 words in the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary.
All of these words are usable in the game.
Scrabble Words that Begin with Vi
- Via
- Viaduct
- Viaducts
- Vial
- Vials
- Vialed
- Viatic
- Viator
- Vibe
- Vibes
- Vibrant
- Vibrate
- Vibrato
- Vibracular
- Vibrator
- Vibrators
- Vibrionic
- Vibrometer
- Viburnums
- Vicar
- Vicars
- Vicariant
- Vice
- Vices
- Viceroy
- Vicious
- Vicinity
- Vicious
- Victim
- Victims
- Victimhood
- Victimize
- Victor
- Victors
- Victoria
- Victory
- Victoriously
- Vid
- Vids
- Video
- Videos
- Videography
- Vie
- Vier
- View
- Views
- Viewer
- Viewed
- Vig
- Vigil
- Vigils
- Vigor
- Vigorous
- Viking
- Vikings
- Vile
- Villa
- Villas
- Village
- Villian
- Villians
- Villify
- Vim
- Vin
- Vindicate
- Vindicated
- Vindicates
- Vine
- Vines
- Vinegar
- Vintage
- Vineyard
- Vineyards
- Vinyl
- Violate
- Violative
- Violin
- Violins
- Violinist
- Violent
- Violet
- Viper
- Viperfish
- Virago
- Viral
- Virge
- Virgin
- Virgins
- Virid
- Virile
- Virility
- Virtual
- Virtue
- Virtues
- Virus
- Visa
- Visas
- Visage
- Viscid
- Viscose
- Vise
- Visibly
- Vision
- Visionaries
- Visit
- Visits
- Visitor
- Visitors
- Visitations
- Visual
- Visuals
- Visualize
- Vital
- Vitals
- Vitality
- Vitamin
- Vitamins
- Vitrify
- Vive
- Vivid
- Vividly
- Vixen
- Vixens
- Vizor
- Vizors
Scrabble Words that Include Vi
- Abbreviate
- Abbreviated
- Abbreviates
- Abbreviating
- Activism
- Activist
- Activists
- Advice
- Adviser
- Advisers
- Alleviate
- Alleviates
- Antiviral
- Antivirals
- Anvil
- Anvils
- Avian
- Aviary
- Avid
- Behavior
- Behaviors
- Bovine
- Bovines
- Brevity
- Captivity
- Carving
- Carvings
- Caviar
- Cavity
- Cavities
- Cervix
- Chauvinism
- Chauvinist
- Circumnavigate
- Civic
- Civil
- Civilian
- Clavicle
- Clavicles
- Collectivism
- Conniving
- Convict
- Convicts
- Convince
- Craving
- Cravings
- Creativity
- Daredevil
- Daredevils
- Deceiving
- Deserving
- Devi
- Deviance
- Deviant
- Deviants
- Deviate
- Deviates
- Device
- Devices
- Devil
- Devils
- Devilish
- Devilishly
- Devious
- Deviously
- Devise
- Devised
- Devolving
- Disapproving
- Disservice
- Dissolving
- Divide
- Dividend
- Dividends
- Diving
- Divine
- Divines
- Divinity
- Division
- Divisions
- Divisive
- Dovish
- Driving
- Elvish
- Engraving
- Enviable
- Eviscerate
- Eviscerated
- Envision
- Evolving
- Exclusivity
- Forgiving
- Giving
- Grapevine
- Grapevines
- Gravitate
- Gravitates
- Gravity
- Impervious
- Improving
- Improvisation
- Impulsivity
- Inactivity
- Incentivize
- Individual
- Individuals
- Interview
- Interviews
- Invigorate
- Invigorates
- Invincible
- Invisible
- Invite
- Invites
- Jive
- Lavish
- Levitate
- Loving
- Novice
- Passivist
- Pavillon
- Pavillons
- Paving
- Pavings
- Peevish
- Pelvic
- Preview
- Previous
- Ravine
- Ravioli
- Ravishing
- Revile
- Revise
- Revised
- Revisit
- Revisits
- Revive
- Revives
- Riviera
- Saving
- Savings
- Savior
- Saviors
- Service
- Services
- Shaving
- Shavings
- Shoving
- Soviet
- Soviets
- Subdivide
- Subdivides
- Subjectivity
- Subservient
- Supervised
- Survivals
- Television
- Televisions
- Trivia
- Trivial
- Uncivil
- Uncivilized
- Underprivileged
- Uninvited
- Wavier
- Waivers
- Waving
- Weaving
- Worldview
- Worldviews
Scrabble Words that End with Vi
- Bravi
- Clavi
- Devi
- Nevi
- Peccavi
Vi Scrabble Meanings
Vi has no official meaning or definition in the game of Scrabble.
However, Vi actually has several meanings in the world. We already looked at what vi means in different languages, so we won’t repeat those here.
Instead, here are other things “Vi” might mean:
- Roman numeral for the number “six”
- Intransitive verb
- Abbreviation of female names
Roman Numeral
Roman numerals are often used to represent numbers in a more formal way.
For example, they are often used to number the chapters in a book or the movement in a piece of classical music. This is because V stands for the number five and I stands for the number one.
When you put these two letters together, they symbolize six.
Intransitive Verb
Vi can also mean “intransitive verb.”
However, only when listed with the word “verb” before the word “intransitive.” Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense.
“Intransitive” may sound like a fancy grammatical term, but it’s actually pretty simple.
An intransitive verb is a verb that does not receive a direct object. In other words, it’s a verb that cannot be used to describe an action that affects someone or something else.
For example, the verb “to walk” is intransitive.
You can walk by yourself, or you can walk with someone else, but you can’t walk somebody (at least not usually and probably not legally).
This is, admittedly, a stretch but the two letters, “vi” are known as intransitive verbs in some circles, so I wanted to mention it.
Abbreviation of Female Names
Vi can also be an abbreviation of many female names.
Here is a shortlist of some of the over 100 names:
- Violet
- Victoria
- Vicky
- Vidhu
- Viola
- Viona
- Vivian
- Videlle
- Vienna
- Virginia
- Vida
- Vivi
- Viri
- Via
- Vianka
Vi Scrabble Word Sentence Examples
Here are examples of using the letters “Vi” in sentences.
Examples using the Italian word Vi:
- Vi ringrazio per il vostro aiuto. (Thank you for your help)
- Vi prego di darmi un altro gelato. (Please give me another ice cream)
- Vi do la mia parola che sarò puntuale. (I give you my word that I will be punctual)
- VI siete tutti invitati a cena stasera. (“You” are all invited to dinner tonight)
- Vi prego di lavarvi le mani prima di mangiare. (“You” please wash your hands before eating)
Examples using the Spanish word Vi:
- Yo vi un gato en el árbol. (I saw a cat in the tree)
- El niño vi a su papá. (The boy saw his father)
- Vi a un hombre en la calle. (I saw a man on the street)
- Vi un coche rojo. (I saw a red car)
- No vi nada. (I didn’t see anything)
Examples using the Danish word Vi:
- Vi elsker kage. (“We love cake”)
- Vi hader at rengøre huset. (“We hate cleaning the house”)
- Vi går på en picnic i parken. (“We’re going on a picnic in the park”)
- Vi kan ikke lide at se grimme film. (“We don’t like watching scary movies”)
- Vi elsker at gå på stranden. (“We love going to the beach”)
Final Thoughts: Is Vi a Scrabble Word?
The bottom line is that vi is not a Scrabble word when playing the official United States version of the game.
There are so many other words available, I highly recommend that you embrace the official rules, kick your creativity into high gear, and grab your favorite people for a fun game.
Read more Scrabble-related articles:
- Is IQ a Scrabble Word? (Official Answer + 201 Alternatives)
- Is Ra a Scrabble Word? (Solved + 1,000 Alternatives)
- Is Que a Scrabble Word? (Official Answer + 700 Alternatives)
- Is Oz a Scrabble Word? (Official Answer + 400 Alternatives)
- What Does GMFU Mean? (Ultimate Guide + 11 Examples)
Sources
Scrabble
Official Scrabble Players Dictionary
Asked by: Abdullah Will II
Score: 4.1/5
(33 votes)
Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns, and be included in a standard dictionary or lexicon.
The name Scrabble is a trademark of Mattel in most of the world, except in the United States and Canada, where it is a trademark of Hasbro. The game is sold in 121 countries and is available in more than 30 languages; approximately 150 million sets have been sold worldwide, and roughly one-third of American and half of British homes have a Scrabble set. There are approximately 4,000 Scrabble clubs around the world.
Is you are a word in scrabble?
No, youre is not in the scrabble dictionary.
What are the 2 letter scrabble words?
Scrabble/Two Letter Words
- AA, AB, AD, AE, AG, AH, AI, AL, AM, AN, AR, AS, AT, AW, AX, AY.
- BA, BE, BI, BO, BY.
- DA, DE, DO.
- ED, EF, EH, EL, EM, EN, ER, ES, ET, EW, EX.
- FA, FE.
- GI, GO.
- HA, HE, HI, HM, HO.
- ID, IF, IN, IS, IT.
Is faces a scrabble word?
Yes, faces is in the scrabble dictionary.
Is Za in scrabble dictionary?
About the Word:
ZA is the most played word containing the letter Z (and the only playable two-letter word with the letter Z) in tournament SCRABBLE play. … za is the country code for South Africa (Zuid-Afrika is Dutch for «South Africa»), but abbreviations and codes are not acceptable on the SCRABBLE board.
34 related questions found
Is QA a scrabble word?
To the frustration of quality assurance professionals and mystical students of Hebrew scripture alike, «qa» is not a playable word in Scrabble.
Is QO a word?
Qo is defined as the abbreviation of Qohelet from the Hebrew Bible which translates into Ecclesiastes, a book of teachings by Solomon in the Old Testament. An example of Qo is what people are referring to when they mention the Hebrew version of Ecclesiastes. Quality operations.
Is Qin a scrabble word?
No, qin is not in the scrabble dictionary.
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#1
Scrabble is the world’s most popular word game. For its origins, we have to go back to the 1930s in the USA, when Alfred Butts, an architect, found himself out of (46) ……………….. He decided that there was a (47) ………………. for a board game based on words and (48) ………………. to design one. Eventually he made a (49) ………………. from it, in spite of the fact that his original ………………. was only three cents a game. 46 A earning B work C income D job
47 A market B purchase C commerce D sale
48 A took up B set out C made for D got round
49 A wealth B fund C cash D fortune
50 A receipt B benefit C profit D allowance
Last edited by a moderator: Jun 27, 2012
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#2
I don’t want to answer directly, but I’ll point out:
(46) When people are employed, they have a job; when unemployed, they are looking for a job because they are out of work.
(47) Purchase and sale are the two ends of a single transaction; and the market is the place where the activity of commerce is done.
(48) One takes up a hobby or occupation, sets out to do something, makes for a destination, and gets round to doing something.
(49) Wealth is an abstract noun; a fund is a pool into which one invests in order to increase one’s money; cash is simply the most liquid form of money, that is coin or currency; and a fortune is a large supply of money or other wealth accumulated from commerce, employment, inheritance, and so on.
(50) A receipt is the total amount of money received in a transaction or a document given to certify monies received; a benefit is any advantage received by doing something; profit is the net difference of income less expenditure; and an allowance is something voluntarily granted to you by someone else without necessarily receiving something in compensation.
I think this should be enough to let you figure out the correct answers. Please pay attention to the exact phrasing I’ve used, especially the words in italics .
Last edited: Jun 28, 2012
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#3
Perhaps the spacing caused Gil to miss b, work.
Descramble Letters — New look! Feedback?
TIP: Use Space Bar or ? for Blank tiles. Results return with maximum of two blanks.
Use the Word Finder tool above to find every possible combination of words from your input word. You can use the generator tool as a cheat for scrabble, WWF, Jumble, Literati, and much more. To use our Scrabble Word Finder, enter in all your rack letters. You can enter «?»s for blank tiles. Use the Extra String input box if you know you have to use certain letters. For instance, in Scrabble, if you are building off a word that ends in the letter «G,» and you want your word to start with a «G,» you can enter G in the extra string, and choose «at beginning» so the Word Finder will return all words starting with the letter G that include your letters.
Note that in this case you will not have to enter the letter «G» in your letters up top, unless you have an additional «G» that you want to use in the word.
You can also choose to sort by Scrabble Point Values or WWF Point Values. This will tell you the most valuable plays you can make on your board. Each result links to The Word Finder dictionary so you can see the definition of the words you are about to play. We also have a Draw Something Help and a Scramble With Friends Tool that will allow you to achieve higher scores in those games. Most recently, we created a wordle solver which will give you possible answers and also the best letters to guess next.
Our Word Finder Tool searches our database of words from the SOWPODS dictionary that both Scrabble and WWF are based upon. It also includes words that were added by the creators of the both games such as «texting.» In some very rare occasions, there will be a word that is returned which is not accepted by Scrabble or WWF. Typically this is because Scrabble has chosen to remove the word because of its negative influence. We will refrain from posting sample words here because they can sometimes be vulgar. But if you are solely a words with friends conisuer, consider giving Scrabble a whirl on the app store. It has improved greatly! If you still prefer wwf, try out the words with friends cheat tool that we have as well.
The Word Finder
How can you get better at scrabble? To improve your score at pretty much any word game, you need to get familiar with a few sets of words. Check out our Scrabble Word Lists, which are invaluable to improving your score. If you get to know the 2 letter words and the words with a Q but no U in them, you will have a huge advantage. This is because you can rack up huge points by creating multiple words in just one play, and sometimes a 2 letter word allows you to do just that. Additionally, knowing your two letter words allows you to get rid of tiles at the end of games. Another list people don’t talk about as often is the list of hooks. A 3 letter hook allows you to create 2 words in your play, one that adds a letter to then beginning (or end) of a word, and your own word that you actually spell out. You can also access the Anagram Solver which will sort out your anagram finding issues. Currently it’s a single word Anagram Solver but we also have a multi word generator as well. It is also important to remember to play defense in Scrabble/WWF. This means that you should not only just unscramble letters but also avoid opening up the triple letter word tile for your opponent(s) because they can score big. One exception is if you yourself are scoring big in the process, or if you think your opponent cannot utilize the triple word tile. Even better is if you have a rare combination of letters (and blanks) that would allow you to use the triple word tile in your next turn after opening it up, while still making it tough for your opponent to use.
Also, be sure to let us know what you want to see on The Word Finder (contact below)! We want to hear from you and make your experience better! We promise to get back to you and take every suggestion very seriously! By the way you can also hit us up on Twitter!
Scrabble logo, used by Hasbro since 2014 |
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A game of English-language Scrabble in progress |
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Manufacturers | Hasbro (within U.S. and Canada) Mattel (outside U.S. and Canada) |
---|---|
Designers | Alfred Mosher Butts |
Publishers | James Brunot |
Publication | 1938; 85 years ago |
Genres | Word game Board game |
Players | 2–4 |
Setup time | 2–4 minutes |
Playing time | NASPA tournament game: ~50 minutes |
Chance | Medium (letters drawn) |
Skills | Vocabulary, spelling, anagramming, strategy, counting, bluffing, probability |
Website | Official website at Hasbro.com |
Scrabble logo used by Mattel since 2013
Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns and are included in a standard dictionary or lexicon.
The game was invented in 1938 by American architect Alfred Mosher Butts. Scrabble is produced in the United States and Canada by Hasbro, under the brands of both of its subsidiaries, Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers. Mattel owns the rights to manufacture Scrabble outside the U.S. and Canada. The game is sold in 121 countries and is available in more than 30 languages; approximately 150 million sets have been sold worldwide, and roughly one-third of American and half of British homes have a Scrabble set.[1][2][3][4] There are approximately 4,000 Scrabble clubs around the world.[4]
Game details[edit]
The game is played by two to four players on a square game board imprinted with a 15×15 grid of cells (individually known as «squares»), each of which accommodates a single letter tile. In official club and tournament games, play is between two players or, occasionally, between two teams, each of which collaborates on a single rack.[5]
The board is marked with «premium» squares, which multiply the number of points awarded: eight dark red «triple-word» squares, 17 pale red «double-word» squares, of which one, the center square (H8), is marked with a star or other symbol, 12 dark blue «triple-letter» squares, and 24 pale blue «double-letter» squares. In 2008, Hasbro changed the colors of the premium squares to orange for TW, red for DW, blue for DL, and green for TL, but the original premium square color scheme is still preferred for Scrabble boards used in tournaments.[6]
The name of the game spelled out in game tiles from the English-language version. Each tile is marked with its point value, with a blank tile — the game’s equivalent of a wild card — played as the word’s first letter. The blank tile is worth zero points.
In an English-language set, the game contains 100 tiles, 98 of which are marked with a letter and a point value ranging from 1 to 10. The number of points for each lettered tile is based on the letter’s frequency in standard English. Commonly used letters such as vowels are worth one point, while less common letters score higher, with Q and Z each worth 10 points. The game also has two blank tiles that are unmarked and carry no point value. The blank tiles can be used as substitutes for any letter; once laid on the board, however, the choice is fixed. Other language sets use different letter set distributions with different point values.
Tiles are usually made of wood or plastic and are 19 by 19 millimetres (0.75 in × 0.75 in) square and 4 mm (0.16 in) thick, making them slightly smaller than the squares on the board. Only the rosewood tiles of the deluxe edition vary in width up to 2 mm (0.08 in) for different letters. Travelling versions of the game often have smaller tiles (e.g. 13 mm × 13 mm (0.51 in × 0.51 in)); sometimes they are magnetic to keep them in place. The capital letter is printed in black at the centre of the tile face and the letter’s point value is printed in a smaller font at the bottom right corner. Most modern replacement tile sets come at 18 mm × 20 mm (0.7 in × 0.8 in).
The official Scrabble board design. Key:
2×LS – Double letter score
3×LS – Triple letter score
2×WS / ★ – Double word score
3×WS – Triple word score
S is one of the most versatile tiles in English-language Scrabble because it can be appended to many words to pluralize them (or in the case of most verbs, convert them to the third person singular present tense, as in the word PLUMMETS); Alfred Butts included only four S tiles to avoid making the game «too easy». Q is considered the most troublesome letter, as almost all words with it also contain U; a similar problem occurs in other languages like French, Dutch, Italian, and German. J is also difficult to play due to its low frequency and a scarcity of words having it at the end.[7] C and V may be troublesome in the endgame, since no two-letter words with them exist, except for CH in the Collins Scrabble Words lexicon.
History[edit]
In 1938, the American architect Alfred Mosher Butts created the game as a variation on an earlier word game he invented, called Lexiko. The two games had the same set of letter tiles, whose distributions and point values Butts worked out by performing a frequency analysis of letters from various sources, including The New York Times. The new game, which he called Criss-Crosswords, added the 15×15 gameboard and the crossword-style gameplay. He manufactured a few sets himself but was not successful in selling the game to any major game manufacturers of the day.[9]: 98
In 1948, James Brunot,[10] a resident of Newtown, Connecticut, and one of the few owners of the original Criss-Crosswords game, bought the rights to manufacture the game in exchange for granting Butts a royalty on every unit sold. Although he left most of the game (including the distribution of letters) unchanged, Brunot slightly rearranged the «premium» squares of the board and simplified the rules; he also renamed the game Scrabble, a real word which means «to scratch frantically».[9]: 100 In 1949, Brunot and his family made sets in a converted former schoolhouse in Dodgingtown, Connecticut, a section of Newtown. They made 2,400 sets that year but lost money.[11] According to legend, Scrabble‘s big break came in 1952 when Jack Straus, president of Macy’s, played the game on vacation. Upon returning from vacation, he was surprised to find that his store did not carry the game. He placed a large order, and within a year, «everyone had to have one».[9]: 101
In 1952, unable to meet demand himself, Brunot licensed the manufacturing rights to Long Island-based Selchow and Righter, one of the manufacturers who, like Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley Company, had previously rejected the game. «It’s a nice little game. It will sell well in bookstores,» Selchow and Righter president Harriet T. Righter remembered saying about Scrabble when she first saw it.[12] In its second year as a Selchow and Righter product, 1954, nearly four million sets were sold.[13][9]: 104 Selchow and Righter then bought the trademark to the game in 1972.[14]
Meanwhile, JW Spear acquired the rights to sell the game in Australia and the UK on January 19, 1955.[9] In 1986, Selchow and Righter was sold to Coleco, which soon afterward went bankrupt. Hasbro then purchased Coleco’s assets in 1989, including Scrabble and Parcheesi.[14] Mattel then acquired JW Spear in 1994.[9] Since then, Hasbro has owned the rights to manufacture Scrabble in the U.S. and Canada, and Mattel has held the rights to manufacture the game in other parts of the world.[14]
In 1984, Scrabble was turned into a daytime game show on NBC. The Scrabble game show ran from July 1984 to March 1990,[15] with a second run from January to June 1993. The show was hosted by Chuck Woolery. Its tagline in promotional broadcasts was, «Every man dies; not every man truly Scrabbles.»[16] In 2011, a new TV variation of Scrabble, called Scrabble Showdown, aired on The Hub cable channel, which is a joint venture of Discovery Communications, Inc. and Hasbro.
Scrabble was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2004.[17]
Evolution of the rules[edit]
The «box rules» included in each copy of the North American edition have been edited four times: in 1953, 1976, 1989, and 1999.[18]
The major changes in 1953 were as follows.
- It was made clear that:
- words could be played through single letters already on the board,
- a player could play a word parallel and immediately adjacent to an existing word provided all crossing words formed were valid,
- the effect of two premium squares was to be compounded multiplicatively.
- The previously unspecified penalty for having one’s play successfully challenged was stated: withdrawal of tiles and loss of turn.
The major changes in 1976 were as follows.
- It was made clear that the blank tile beats an A when drawing to see who goes first.
- A player could pass their turn, doing nothing.
- A loss-of-turn penalty was added for challenging an acceptable play.
- If final scores are tied, the player whose score was highest before adjusting for unplayed tiles is the winner;[19] in tournament play, a tie is counted as half a win for both players.[6]
The editorial changes made in 1989 did not affect gameplay.[18]
The major changes in 1999 were as follows.
- It was made clear that:
- a tile can be shifted or replaced until the play has been scored,
- a challenge applies to all the words made in the given play.
- Playing all seven tiles is officially called a «bingo» in North America and a «bonus» elsewhere.
- A change in the wording of the rules could have been interpreted as meaning that a player may form more than one word on one row on a single turn.
Rules[edit]
Notation system[edit]
In the notation system common in tournament play, columns are labeled with the letters «A–O» and rows with the numbers «1–15». (On Scrabble boards manufactured by Mattel as well as on the Internet Scrabble Club, rows are lettered while columns are numbered instead.) A play is usually identified in the format xy WORD score or WORD xy score, where x denotes the column or row on which the play’s main word extends, y denotes the second coordinate of the main word’s first letter, and WORD is the main word. Although it is unnecessary, additional words formed by the play are sometimes listed after the main word and a slash. When the play of a single tile forms words in each direction, one of the words is arbitrarily chosen to serve as the main word for purposes of notation.
When a blank tile is employed in the main word, the letter it has been chosen to represent is indicated with a lower case letter, or, in handwritten notation, with a square around the letter. When annotating a play, previously existing letters on the board are usually enclosed in parentheses; alternatively, the number of tiles placed on the board can be noted.
Exchanges are often annotated by a minus sign followed by the tiles that were exchanged alphabetically; for example, if a player holds EIIISTU, exchanging two I’s and a U would be denoted as «−IIU».
The image at right gives examples of valid plays and how they would typically be annotated using the notation system.
An example of a Scrabble game in progress using Quackle, an open-source program. The first few plays are JOKED 8D 50, followed by REV(O)TInG E5 94 and YEX# F4 56.
Additionally, a number of symbols have been employed to indicate the validity of words in different lexica:
- An asterisk (*) means an illegal, or phony, word.
- A hash symbol (#) means a word valid in games using the British-originated word list (CSW) only.
- A dollar symbol ($) means a word valid in games using the American-originated word list (TWL) only.
- An exclamation mark (!) means a word judged to be offensive, and thus valid in tournament games only.
Sequence of play[edit]
Before the game, a resource, either a word list or a dictionary, is selected to adjudicate any challenges during the game. The tiles are either put in an opaque bag or placed face down on a flat surface. Opaque cloth bags and customized tiles are staples of clubs and tournaments, where games are rarely played without both.
Next, players decide the order in which they play. The normal approach is for players to each draw one tile. The player who picks the letter closest to the beginning of the alphabet goes first, with blank tiles taking precedence over the letter A. In most North American tournaments, the rules of the NASPA Games organization stipulate instead that players who have gone first in the fewest previous games in the tournament go first, and when that rule yields a tie, those who have gone second the most go first. If there is still a tie, tiles are drawn as in the standard rules.
At the beginning of the game, each player draws seven tiles from the bag and places them on their rack, concealed from the other player(s).
Making a play[edit]
The first played word must be at least two letters long, and cover H8 (the center square). Thereafter, any move is made by using one or more tiles to place a word on the board. This word may use one or more tiles already on the board and must join with the cluster of tiles already on the board.
On each turn, the player has three options:
- Pass, forfeiting the turn and scoring nothing.
- Exchange one or more tiles for an equal number from the bag, scoring nothing, an option available only if at least seven tiles remain in the bag.
- Play at least one tile on the board, adding the value of all words formed to the player’s cumulative score.
A proper play uses one or more of the player’s tiles to form a continuous string of letters that make a word (the play’s «main word») on the board, reading either left-to-right or top-to-bottom. The main word must either use the letters of one or more previously played words or else have at least one of its tiles horizontally or vertically adjacent to an already played word. If any words other than the main word are formed by the play, they are scored as well and are subject to the same criteria of acceptability. See Scoring for more details.
A blank tile may represent any letter and scores zero points, regardless of its placement or what letter it represents. Its placement on a double-word or triple-word square causes the corresponding premium to be applied to the word(s) in which it is used. Once a blank tile is placed, it remains that particular letter for the remainder of the game.
After making a play, the player announces the score for that play, and then, if the game is being played with a clock, starts the opponent’s clock. The player can change their play as long as the player’s clock is running, but commits to the play when they start the opponent’s clock. The player then draws tiles from the bag to replenish their rack to seven tiles. If there are not enough tiles in the bag to do so, the player takes all the remaining tiles.
If a player has made a play and has not yet drawn a tile, the opponent may choose to challenge any or all words formed by the play. The player challenged must then look up the words in question using a specified word source (such as the NASPA Word List, the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, or Collins Scrabble Words), and if one or more of them is found to be unacceptable, the play is removed from the board, the player returns the newly played tiles to their rack, and the turn is forfeited. In tournament play, a challenge may be to the entire play or any one or more words formed in the play, and judges (human or computer) are used, so players are not entitled to know which word(s) are invalid. Penalties for unsuccessfully challenging an acceptable play vary in club and tournament play and are described in greater detail below.
End of game[edit]
A game of magnetic Pocket Scrabble approaching its end, where players have fewer than seven tiles remaining
Under North American tournament rules, the game ends when either:
- One player has played every tile on their rack, and no tiles remain in the bag (regardless of the tiles on the opponent’s rack).
- At least six successive scoreless turns have occurred and either player decides to end the game.
- Either player uses more than 10 minutes of overtime. (For several years, a game could not end with a cumulative score of 0–0, but that is no longer the case, and such games have since occurred a number of times in tournament play, the winner being the player with the lower total point value on their rack and thus a score less negative than the opponent’s.[20])
When the game ends, each player’s score is reduced by the sum of their unused letters; in addition, if a player has used all of their letters (known as «going out» or «playing out»), the sum of all other players’ unused letters is added to that player’s score. In tournament play, a player who goes out adds twice that sum, and their opponent is not penalized.
Examples[edit]
Plays can be made in several ways (in what follows, it is assumed that the word JACK has been played on a previous turn; letters in parentheses represent tiles already on the board):
- Adding one or more letters to an existing word, e.g. (JACK)S, HI(JACK), HI(JACK)ING, (JACK)FRUIT.
- «Hooking» a word and playing perpendicular to that word, e.g. playing IONIZES with the S hooked on (JACK) to make (JACK)S.
- Playing perpendicular to a word, e.g. YEU(K)Y through the K in (JACK).
- Playing parallel to a word(s) forming several short words, e.g. CON played under (JACK) simultaneously forming (J)O and (A)N.
Any combination of these is allowed in a play, as long as all the letters placed on the board in one play lie in one row or column and are connected by a main word, and any run of tiles on two or more consecutive squares along a row or column constitutes a valid word.
Words must read either left-to-right or top-to-bottom. Diagonal plays are not allowed.
Scoring[edit]
Square | Original and Mattel version | Hasbro Version (2008–2014) |
---|---|---|
Double letter | Light blue | Blue |
Triple letter | Dark blue | Green |
Double word | Pink | Red |
Triple word | Red | Orange |
The score for any play is determined this way:
- Each new word formed in a play is scored separately, and then those scores are added up. The value of each tile is indicated on the tile, and blank tiles are worth zero points.
- The main word (defined as the word containing every played letter) is scored. The letter values of the tiles are added up, and tiles placed on Double Letter Score (DLS) and Triple Letter Score (TLS) squares are doubled or tripled in value, respectively. Tiles placed on Double Word Score (DWS) or Triple Word Score (TWS) squares double or triple the value of the word(s) that include those tiles, respectively. In particular, the center square (H8) is considered a DWS, and the first play is doubled in value.
- If any «hook» words are played (e.g. playing ANEROID while «hooking» the A to BETTING to make ABETTING), the scores for each word are added separately. This is common for «parallel» plays that make up to eight words in one turn.
- Premium squares apply only when newly placed tiles cover them. Any subsequent plays do not count those premium squares.
- If a player covers both letter and word premium squares with a single word, the letter premium(s) is/are calculated first, followed by the word premium(s).
- If a player makes a play where the main word covers two DWS squares, the value of that word is doubled, then redoubled (i.e. 4× the word value). Similarly, if the main word covers two TWS squares, the value of that word is tripled, then re-tripled (9× the word value). Such plays are often referred to as «double-doubles» and «triple-triples» respectively. It is theoretically possible to achieve a play covering three TWS squares (a 27× word score), although this is extremely improbable without constructive setup and collaboration. Plays covering a DWS and a TWS simultaneously (6× the word value, or 18× if a DWS and two TWS squares are covered) are only possible if a player misses the center star on the first turn, and the play goes unchallenged (this is valid under North American tournament rules).
- Finally, if seven tiles have been laid on the board in one turn, known as a «bingo» in North America and as a «bonus» elsewhere, after all of the words formed have been scored, 50 bonus points are added.
When the letters to be drawn have run out, the final play can often determine the winner. This is particularly the case in close games with more than two players.
Scoreless turns can occur when a player passes, exchanges tiles, or loses a challenge. The latter rule varies slightly in international tournaments. A scoreless turn can also theoretically occur if a play consists of only blank tiles, but this is extremely unlikely in actual play.
Example[edit]
Suppose Player 1 plays QUANT 8D, with the Q on a DLS and T on the center star. The score for this play would be (2 × 10 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) × 2 = 48 (following the order of operations).
Player 2 extends the play to ALI(QUANT) 8A with the A on the TWS at 8A. The score for this play would be (1 + 1 + 1 + 10 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) × 3 = 51. Note that the Q is not doubled for this play.
Player 1 has DDIIIOO and plays OIDIOID 9G. The score for the word OIDIOID would be (2 × 1 + 1 + 2 × 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 × 2) = 14. Additionally, Player 1 formed NO and TI, which score 1 + 2 × 1 = 3 and 1 + 1 = 2 points respectively. Therefore, the sum of all the values of the words formed is 14+3+2 = 19. But since this is a seven-letter play, 50 points are added, resulting in a total score of 69. Player 1 now has a 117–51 lead.
The player with the highest final score wins the game. In case of a tie, the player with the highest score before adjusting for unplayed tiles wins the game. In tournament play, a tie counts as 1/2 a win for both players.
Acceptable words[edit]
Acceptable words are the primary entries in some agreed dictionary or lexicon, and all of their inflected forms. Words that are hyphenated, capitalized (such as proper nouns), or apostrophized are not allowed unless they also appear as acceptable entries; JACK is a proper noun, but the word JACK is acceptable because it has other usages as a common noun (automotive, vexillological, etc.) and verb that are acceptable. Acronyms or abbreviations, other than those that have acceptable entries (such as AWOL, RADAR, LASER, and SCUBA) are not allowed. Variant spellings, slang or offensive terms, archaic or obsolete terms, and specialized jargon words are allowed if they meet all other criteria for acceptability, but archaic spellings (e.g. NEEDE for NEED) are generally not allowed. Foreign words are not allowed in English-language Scrabble unless they have been incorporated into the English language, as with PATISSERIE, KILIM, and QI. Vulgar and offensive words are generally excluded from the OSPD but allowed in club and tournament play, but in 2020, the rise of anti-racism protests caused trademark owners and lexicon compilers to exclude words deemed to be personally applicable offensive slurs, resulting in their expurgation, while retaining other offensive words.
Proper nouns and other exceptions to the usual rules are allowed in some limited contexts in the spin-off game Scrabble Trickster. Names of recognized computer programs are permitted as an acceptable proper noun (for example, WinZip).
The memorization of two-letter words is considered an essential skill in this game.[21]
There are two popular competition word lists for English-language Scrabble:
- NASPA Word List (NWL, also known as OTCWL, OWL, or TWL)
- Collins Scrabble Words (CSW, also called «Collins» or «SOWPODS»)
The first predominates in the U.S., Canada, Israel and Thailand, and the second in English Scrabble in the rest of the world. There is also a large community of competitive Collins players in North America, with its own NASPA rating system.
NWL and OSPD[edit]
Today’s NASPA Word List, published by NASPA Games, descends from the Official Tournament and Club Word List (a non-bowdlerized version of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary) and its companion Long Words List for longer words. The current version of NWL is NWL2020, effective January 2021, and the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, published by Merriam-Webster, is currently in its sixth edition of 2018. NWL includes all current OSPD words, plus several hundred offensive words and genericized trademarks such as KLEENEX; as of 2020, it no longer includes words judged to be personally applicable offensive slurs.
The NWL and OSPD are compiled using a number of major college-level dictionaries, principally those published by Merriam-Webster. If a word appears, at least historically, in any one of the dictionaries, it is included in the NWL and the OSPD. If the word has only an offensive meaning, it is included only in the NWL. The key difference between the OSPD and the NWL is that the OSPD is marketed for «home and school» use, without words which their source dictionaries judged offensive, rendering the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary less fit for official Scrabble play. The OSPD is available in bookstores, while the NWL is available only through NASPA.
Collins Scrabble Words[edit]
In all other English-speaking countries, the competition word list is Collins Scrabble Words 2019 edition, known as CSW19. (Versions of this lexicon before 2007 were known as SOWPODS.) The lexicon includes all allowed words 2 to 15 letters long. Historically, this list has contained all OTCWL words plus words sourced from Chambers and Collins English dictionaries, but recent editorial decisions have caused greater discrepancies between CSW and NWL. This book is used to adjudicate at the World Scrabble Championship and all other major international competitions outside North America.
Tournaments are also played using CSW in North America, particularly since Hasbro ceased to control tournament play in 2009. NASPA officially rates CSW tournaments alongside NWL tournaments, using a separate rating system.[22]
Challenges[edit]
The penalty for a successfully challenged play is nearly universal: the offending player removes the tiles played and forfeits their turn. (In some online games, an option known as «void» may be used, wherein unacceptable words are automatically rejected by the program. The player is then required to make another play, with no penalty applied.)
The penalty for an unsuccessful challenge (where all words formed by the play are deemed valid) varies considerably, including:
- «Double Challenge», in which an unsuccessfully challenging player must forfeit the next turn. This penalty governs North American (NASPA-sanctioned) OWL tournament play,[6] and is the standard for North American, Israeli, and Thai clubs. Because loss of a turn generally constitutes the greatest risk for an unsuccessful challenge, it provides the greatest incentive for a player to «bluff», or play a «phony» – a plausible word that they know or suspect to be unacceptable, hoping their opponent will not challenge it. Or a player can put down a legal word that appears to be a phony hoping the other player will incorrectly challenge it and lose their turn.
- «Single Challenge»/»Free Challenge», in which no penalty whatsoever is applied to a player who unsuccessfully challenges. This is the default rule in Ireland and the United Kingdom, as well as for many tournaments in Australia, although these countries do sanction occasional tournaments using other challenge rules.
- Modified «Single Challenge», in which an unsuccessful challenge does not result in the loss of the challenging player’s turn, but is penalized by the loss of a specified number of points. The most common penalty is five points. The rule has been adopted in Singapore (since 2000), Malaysia (since 2002), South Africa (since 2003), New Zealand (since 2004), and Kenya, as well as in contemporary World Scrabble Championships (since 2001) and North American (NASPA-sanctioned) Collins tournaments, and particularly prestigious Australian tournaments.[23] Some countries and tournaments (including Sweden) use a 10-point penalty instead. In most game situations, this penalty is much lower than that of the «double challenge» rule. Consequently, such tournaments encourage greater willingness to challenge and discourage playing dubious words.
Under NASPA tournament rules, a player may request to «hold» the opponent’s play to consider whether to challenge it, provided that the opponent has not yet drawn replacement tiles. If player A holds, player A’s clock still runs, and player B may not draw provisional replacement tiles until 15 seconds after the hold was announced (which tiles must then be kept separate). There is no limit on how long player A may hold the play. If player A successfully challenges after player B drew provisional replacement tiles, player B must show the drawn tiles before returning them to the bag.
Competitive play[edit]
Club and tournament play[edit]
Tens of thousands play club and tournament Scrabble worldwide. All tournament (and most club) games are played with a game clock and a set time control. Although casual games are often played with unlimited time, this is problematic in competitive play among players for whom the number of evident legal plays is immense. Almost all tournament games involve only two players; typically, each has 25 minutes in which to make all of their plays. For each minute by which a player oversteps the time control, a penalty of 10 points is assessed. The number of minutes is rounded up, so, for example, if a player oversteps time control by two minutes and five seconds, the penalty is 30 points. Some games count the time by fractions of a minute.[24][25] Also, most players use molded plastic tiles, not engraved like the original wooden tiles, eliminating the potential for a cheating player to «braille» (feel for particular tiles, especially blanks, in the bag).[13]
Players are allowed «tracking sheets», pre-printed with the letters in the initial pool, from which tiles can be crossed off as they are played. Tracking tiles is an important aid to strategy, especially during the endgame, when no tiles remain to be drawn and each player can determine exactly what is on the opponent’s rack.
Notable and regularly held tournaments include:
- The World Scrabble Championship: held in odd years up until 2013, when it was announced by Mattel that it would be called the Scrabble Champions Tournament and be held annually in subsequent years.[26]
- The Scrabble Players Championship (formerly North American Scrabble Championship): organized by NASPA Games, an open event attracting several hundred players, held around July–August every year in the United States.
- The National Scrabble Championship: organized by the Association of British Scrabble Players (ABSP) and held every year in the United Kingdom.
- The Brand’s Crossword Game King’s Cup: the largest tournament in the world. Held annually in Thailand around the end of June or the beginning of July.
- The UK Open: the largest Scrabble tournament in Europe, held annually in Coventry in England, since 2008.
Other important tournaments include:
- The World Youth Scrabble Championships: entry by country qualification, restricted to under 18 years old. Held annually since 2006.
- The National School Scrabble Championship: entry open to North American school students. Held annually since 2003.
- The Canadian Scrabble Championship: entry by invitation only to the top fifty Canadian players. Held every two to three years.
- The Singapore Open Scrabble Championship: international Singapore championship held annually since 1997.
Clubs in North America typically meet one day a week for three or four hours and some charge a small admission fee to cover their expenses and prizes. Clubs also typically hold at least one open tournament per year. Tournaments are usually held on weekends, and between six and nine games are played each day.
There are also clubs in the UK and many other countries. There are a number of internationally rated SOWPODS tournaments.[27]
During off-hours at tournaments, many players socialize by playing consultation (team) Scrabble, Clabbers, Anagrams, Boggle, Words with Friends, Scramble with Friends and other games.
Records[edit]
The following records were achieved during international competitive club or tournament play, according to authoritative sources, including the book Everything Scrabble by Joe Edley and John D. Williams Jr. (revised edition, Pocket Books, 2001) and the Scrabble FAQ.[28] When available, separate records are listed based upon different official word lists:
- OTCWL, the North American list, also used in Thailand and Israel, known today as the NASPA Word List (NWL);
- OSW, formerly the official list in the UK;
- SOWPODS, the combined OTCWL+OSW list now used in much of the world, known today as Collins Scrabble Words.
To date, new editions or revisions of these lists have not been considered substantial enough to warrant separate record-keeping.
- High game (OTCWL) – 830 by Michael Cresta (Mass.), at the Lexington (Mass.) club, October 12, 2006. Cresta defeated Wayne Yorra 830–490.[29][30]
- High game (OTCWL) in a tournament game – 803 by Joel Sherman (N.Y.), at a tournament in Stamford, Conn., December 9, 2011. Sherman defeated Bradley Robbins 803–285, playing a record-tying seven bingos and sticking Robbins with the Q.[31]
- High game (OSW) – 793 by Peter Preston (UK), 1999.[32]
- High game (SOWPODS) – Toh Weibin set a record score of 850 at the Northern Ireland Championships on January 21, 2012. The winning margin of 591 points is also believed to be a record.[33][34][35]
- High combined score (OTCWL) – 1320 (830–490) by Michael Cresta and Wayne Yorra, in a Lexington, Mass., club, 2006.[29][30]
- High combined score (OTCWL) in a tournament game – 1134 (582–552) by Keith Smith (Tex.) and Stefan Rau (Conn.), Round 12 of the 2008 Dallas Open. (Rau’s losing score of 552 included three phony words that were not challenged.)[36]
- High combined score (OTCWL) in a tournament game with no phony words played – 1127 (725–402) by Laurie Cohen (Ariz.) and Nigel Peltier (Wash.), in a tournament in Ahwatukee, Arizona, February 16, 2009.[37]
- High combined score (SOWPODS) – 1210 (721–489) by Edward Okulicz (Australia and Michael McKenna (Australia), at the 2013 Janboree in NSW.[38]
- Highest losing score (OTCWL) – 552 by Stefan Rau (Conn.) to Keith Smith’s (Tex.) 582, Round 12 of the 2008 Dallas Open.[36]
- Highest tie game (OTCWL) – 502–502 by John Chew and Zev Kaufman, at a 1997 Toronto Club tournament.[39]
- Highest tie game (SOWPODS) – 532–532 by Sinatarn Pattanasuwanna (Thailand) and Tawan Paepolsiri (Thailand) at the 2012 World Youth Scrabble Championship.[40]
- Highest opening move score (OTCWL) – MuZJIKS (with a blank for the U) 126 by Jesse Inman (S.C.) at the National Scrabble Championship, 2008.[41] The highest possible legal score on a first turn is MUZJIKS 128, using an actual U rather than a blank. (Note: The odds of drawing MUZJIKS without blanks is 9 in 432,325,411, or 1 in [42])
- Highest opening move score (SOWPODS) – BEZIQUE 124 by Sam Kantimathi (1993),[43] Joan Rosenthal[44] and Sally Martin.[44]
- Highest single play (OTCWL) – QUIXOTRY 365 by Michael Cresta (Mass.), 2006.[29][30]
- Highest single play (SOWPODS) – CAZIQUES 392 by Karl Khoshnaw.[45]
- Highest average score, multi-day tournament (OSPD) – 503 by James Leong (Sask.) over 12 rounds at Brandon, Man., 2015.[46] 484 by Doug Brockmeier (Calif.) over 12 rounds at Elmhurst, Ill., 2011.[47] 471 by Chris Cree (Tex.) over 18 rounds at the Bayou Bash in Houston, Tex., 2007.[48]
- Highest average score, multi-day tournament (SOWPODS) – 499.94 by Nigel Richards (MY) over 16 rounds at the 7th Lim Boon Heng Cup, Singapore, 2009.[49]
- Highest average score, one day tournament (SOWPODS) – 548 by Jackson Smylie of Toronto, Ontario over 5 rounds at Caledon, Ontario
- Highest average score, one day tournament (OTCWL) – 532 by Jackson Smylie over 4 rounds at North American Scrabble Championship early bird in Las Vegas
Two other records are believed[citation needed] to have been achieved under a British format known as the «high score rule», in which a player’s tournament result is determined only by the player’s own scores, and not by the differentials between that player’s scores and the opponents’. Play in this system «encourages elaborate setups often independently mined by the two players»,[32] and is significantly different from the standard game in which defensive considerations play a major role. While the «high score» rule has led to impressively high records, it is currently out of favor.[citation needed]
- High game score of 1,049 by Phil Appleby of Lymington, Hampshire, UK, on June 25, 1989, in Wormley, Hertfordshire, UK. His opponent scored just 253 points, giving Appleby a record victory margin of 796 points.
- High single-turn score of 392, by Dr Saladin Karl Khoshnaw[45] in Manchester, UK, in April 1982. The word he used was CAZIQUES, meaning «native chiefs of West Indian aborigines».
Hypothetical scores in possible and legal but highly unlikely plays and games are far higher, primarily through the use of words that cover three triple-word-score squares. The highest reported score for a single play is 1780 (OSPD) and 1785 (SOWPODS) using oxyphenbutazone.[50] When only adding the word sesquioxidizing to these official lists, one could theoretically score 2015 (OSPD) and 2044 (SOWPODS) points in a single move.[50]
The highest reported combined score for a theoretical game based on SOWPODS is 4046 points, constructed by Nathan Hedt of Australia.[51][user-generated source][52]4046 points[failed verification]
Other records are available for viewing at Total Scrabble, an unofficial record book that includes the above as sources and expands on other topics.
In August 1984, Peter Finan and Neil Smith played Scrabble for 153 hours at St. Anselm’s College, Birkenhead, Merseyside, setting a new duration record. A longer record was never recorded by Guinness Book of Records, as the publishers decided that duration records of this nature were becoming too dangerous and stopped accepting them.[53]
Software[edit]
Computer players[edit]
Maven is a computer opponent for the game created by Brian Sheppard. The official Scrabble computer game in North America uses a version of Maven as its artificial intelligence and is published by Atari. Outside North America, the official Scrabble computer game is published by Ubisoft. Quackle is an open-source alternative to Maven of comparable strength, created by a five-person team led by Jason Katz-Brown.[54] A Qt cross-platform version of Quackle is available on GitHub.[55]
Video game versions[edit]
Video game versions of Scrabble have been released for various platforms, including IBM PC compatibles, Mac, Amiga,[56] Commodore 64,[57] ZX Spectrum,[58] Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance,[59] Nintendo DS,[60] PlayStation,[61] PlayStation 4, PlayStation Portable,[62] iPod, iOS, Game.com, Palm OS, Amstrad CPC, Xbox 360, Kindle,[63] Wii,[64] and mobile phones.
The Nintendo DS version of Scrabble 2007 Edition made news when parents became angry over the game’s AI using potentially offensive language during gameplay.[65]
Web versions[edit]
Several websites offer the possibility to play Scrabble online against other users, such as ScrabbleScores.com, the Internet Scrabble Club and Pogo.com from Electronic Arts (North America only).
Facebook initially offered a variation of Scrabble called Scrabulous as a third-party application add-on. On July 24, 2008, Hasbro filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against its developers.[66] Four days later, Scrabulous was disabled for users in North America,[67] eventually reappearing as «Lexulous» in September 2008, with changes made to distinguish it from Scrabble. By December 20, Hasbro had withdrawn its lawsuit.[68]
Mattel launched its official version of online Scrabble, Scrabble by Mattel, on Facebook in late March 2008.[69][70] The application was developed by Gamehouse, a division of RealNetworks that was licensed by Mattel.[70] Since Hasbro controls the copyright for North America with the copyright for the rest of the world belonging to Mattel,[69] the Gamehouse Facebook application was available only to players outside the United States and Canada.[70] The version developed by Electronic Arts for Hasbro was available throughout the world.
When Gamehouse ceased support for its application, Mattel replaced it with the Electronic Arts version in May 2013. This decision was met with criticism from its userbase.[71] The Hasbro version continues to be available worldwide but now uses IP lookup to display Hasbro branding to North American players and Mattel branding to the rest of the world. Electronic Arts have also released mobile apps for Android and iOS, allowing players to continue the same game on more than one platform.
As well as facilities to play occasional games online, there are many options to play in leagues.[72]
In 2020, the license for Scrabble passed from Electronic Arts to Scopely, which launched the app Scrabble GO on March 5, 2020, with the Electronic Arts version discontinued on June 5, 2020.[73] The new app was very different, leading to protests, and Scopely soon began to offer a ‘Classic’ version, without some of the extras initially offered: «this updated mode is reimagined to reflect the ask for a streamlined experience. Features such as boosts, rewards and all other game modes are disabled», the company announced.[74]
Variations[edit]
Super Scrabble[edit]
A new licensed product, Super Scrabble, was launched in North America by Winning Moves Games in 2004 under license from Hasbro, with the deluxe version (with turntable and lock-in grid) released in February 2007. A Mattel-licensed product for the rest of the world was released by Tinderbox Games in 2006. This set comprises 200 tiles in slightly modified distribution to the standard set and a 21×21 playing board.
National versions[edit]
Versions of the game have been released in several other languages.
The game was called Alfapet when it was introduced in Sweden in 1954, but since the mid-1990s, the game has also been known as Scrabble in Sweden. Alfapet is now another crossword game, developed by the owners of the name Alfapet. A Russian version is called Erudit. Versions have been prepared for Dakotah, Haitian Creole, Dakelh (Carrier language), and Tuvan.[75]
For languages with digraphs counted as single letters, such as Welsh and Hungarian, the game features separate tiles for those digraphs.
An Irish-language version of Scrabble was published by Glór na nGael in 2010. The previous year the same organisation published the Junior version of the game and two years later it republished Junior Scrabble using a two-sided (and two skill level) board.
Television game show versions[edit]
In 1987, a board game was released by Selchow & Righter, based on the game show hosted by Chuck Woolery that aired on NBC from 1984 to 1990 (and for five months in 1993). Billed as the «Official Home Version» of the game show (or officially as the «TV Scrabble Home Game»), gameplay bears more resemblance to the game show than it does to a traditional Scrabble game, although it does utilize a traditional Scrabble gameboard in play.
On September 17, 2011, a new game show based on Scrabble, called Scrabble Showdown, debuted on The Hub with Justin «Kredible» Willman as the host of the program.[76] Each week, teams play various activities based on the board game in order to win big prizes including a trip to anywhere from around the world.
Games based on Scrabble[edit]
There are numerous variations of the game. While they are similar to the original Scrabble game, they include minor variations. For example, Literati draws random tiles instead of providing a finite number of tiles for the game, assigns different point levels to each letter and has a slightly different board layout, whereas Lexulous assigns eight letters to each player instead of seven. Words with Friends uses a different board layout and different letter values, as does Words of Gold.
A duplicate Scrabble tournament in La Bresse, France
Duplicate Scrabble is a popular variant in French speaking countries. Every player has the same letters on the same board and the players must submit a paper slip at the end of the allotted time (usually 3 minutes) with the highest scoring word they have found. This is the format used for the French World Scrabble Championships but it is also used in Romanian and Dutch. There is no limit to the number of players that can be involved in one game, and at Vichy in 1998 there were 1,485 players, a record for French Scrabble tournaments.
Scarabeo [it] is a variant that is much more popular in Italy than the original game. It features a 17×17 grid of cells and peculiar rules.[77]
In one variation of Scrabble, blanks score points corresponding to the letters the blanks are used to represent. For example, if one played blank to represent a Z, it would get ten; a blank to represent a V or an H would get four; a blank to represent a D would get 2 and blank to represent a T, N, L, S or R or any of the vowels would get one.
Popular among tournament Scrabble players is Clabbers. In Clabbers, any move that consists of anagrams of allowable words is allowed. For example, because ETAERIO is allowable in ordinary Collins Scrabble, EEAIORT would be allowable in Clabbers.[78]
A junior version, called Junior Scrabble, has been marketed. This has slightly different distributions of frequencies of letter tiles to the standard Scrabble game.
Word games similar to or influenced by Scrabble include Bananagrams, Boggle, Dabble, Nab-It!, Perquackey, Puzzlage, Quiddler, Scribbage, Tapple, Upwords, and WordSpot.
There are also number-based variations, such as Equate (game), GoSum, Mathable, Numble, Numbler, Triolet, Yushino and Numenko.
Gameboard formats[edit]
The game has been released in numerous gameboard formats appealing to various user groups. The original boards included wood tiles and many «deluxe» sets still do.
Tile Lock editions[edit]
Tile Lock editions of Scrabble[79] and Super Scrabble[80][81] are made by Winning Moves and feature smaller, plastic tiles that are held in place on the board with little plastic posts. The standard version features exactly the same 100 tiles as regular Scrabble. The Tile Lock Super Scrabble features the same 200 tiles that are in Super Scrabble.
Travel editions[edit]
Editions are available for travelers who may wish to play in a conveyance such as a train or plane or to pause a game in progress and resume later. Many versions thus include methods to keep letters from moving, such as pegboards, recessed tile holders and magnetic tiles. Players’ trays are also designed with stay-fast holders. Such boards are also typically designed to be reoriented by each player to put the board upright during the game, as well as folded and stowed with the game in progress.
- Production and Marketing Company, 1954 – metal hinged box, Bakelite tiles inlaid with round magnets, chrome tile racks, silver-colored plastic bag and cardboard box covered with decorative paper. The box, when opened flat, measures 8+1⁄2 in × 7+3⁄4 in (22 cm × 20 cm) and the tiles measure 1⁄2 in (13 mm) square.
- Spear’s Games, the 1980s – boxed edition with pegboard, plastic tiles with small feet to fit snugly in the pegboard. Racks are clear plastic, allowing some sorting while holding tiles fairly snugly. The set comes with a drawstring plastic bag to draw tiles and a cardboard box. It is possible to save a game in progress by returning the board to the box. There is a risk of players’ trays being mixed and upset, and the box lid, held on by friction, is subject to upset.
- Selchow & Righter, 1980s – pocket edition with plastic «magnetic» board and tiles. Tile racks are also plastic with an asymmetrical shape to provide a handhold. All elements fit in a plastic envelope for travel and to permit a pause in the game. Plastic letters are very small and tend to lose their grip if not placed with slight lateral movement and if they are not perfectly clean. The game format is extremely small, allowing Scrabble games for backpackers and others concerned about weight and size.
- Hasbro Games, 2001 – hinged plastic board with clear tile-shaped depressions to hold tiles in play. Board is in a black, zippered folio such that board and tiles may be folded for travel, even with the game in play. The reverse side of the board contains numbered mounts for racks, holding tiles face down, allowing secure and confidential storage of tiles while a game is paused. Some versions have tile racks with individual tile slots, thus not permitting easy sorting of tiles in a rack. The board, when opened up, measures 24.5 cm × 21.0 cm (9+3⁄4 in × 8+1⁄4 in), and the tiles are 12.3 mm × 12.3 mm × 6.7 mm (1⁄2 in × 1⁄2 in × 1⁄4 in) in size.
Deluxe editions[edit]
At the opposite end, some «deluxe» or «prestige»[82] editions offer superior materials and features. These include editions on a rotating turntable, so players can always face the board, with the letters upright and a raised grid that holds the tiles in place.[83][84] Also available are alternative Scrabble boards, often made of glass[85] or hardwood, that have superior rotating mechanisms and personalized graphics.
Large print and braille editions[edit]
An edition has been released (in association with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB))[86] with a larger board and letters for players with impaired vision.[87] The colours on the board are more contrasting, and the font size has been increased from 16 to 24 point. The tiles are in bold 48 point, and have braille labels. A separate braille edition is also available.[88]
[edit]
Books[edit]
Numerous books about Scrabble have been published, including nonfiction titles helping players improve their game, and fiction titles using the game as a plot device. These include:
- Merriam-Webster’s The Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary, the Sixth Edition of which was published in 2018. The OSPD is the consistently best-selling official Scrabble book.
- Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis (2001), an introduction to tournament Scrabble and its players. While writing the book, Fatsis became a high-rated tournament player.
- The Scrabble Player’s Handbook, edited by Stewart Holden and Kenji Matsumoto, and written by an international group of tournament players, which gives the information a serious player needs to advance to successful tournament play. Not to be confused with Drue K. Conklin’s 1976 The Official Scrabble Player’s Handbook, The Scrabble Player’s Handbook is available for free download.[89]
Documentaries[edit]
Numerous documentaries have been made about the game, including:
- Scrabylon (2003), by Scott Petersen, which «gives an up-close look at why people get so obsessed with that seemingly benign game»
- Word Slingers (2002), by Eric Siblin and Stefan Vanderland (produced for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)), which follows four expert Canadian players at the 2001 World Championship in Las Vegas
- Word Wars (2004) by Eric Chaikin and Julian Petrillo, about the «tiles and tribulations on the Scrabble game circuit»
See also[edit]
- Anagrams — Public domain game, predecessor to Scrabble
- Anamonic
- Blanagram
- Boggle
- Countdown (game show)
- RSVP (board game)
- Scrabble in Hong Kong
- Upwords
- Words with Friends
- Wordscraper
References[edit]
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- ^ «The History of Scrabble®». Mind Sport Olympiad. Archived from the original on June 8, 2011.
- ^ «Spell bound». The Guardian. London. June 28, 2008. Retrieved January 2, 2009.
- ^ a b «Scrabble: 60 facts for its 60th birthday». The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022. Retrieved March 31, 2016.
- ^ «Scrabble». mindsports_scrabble.php. Retrieved April 29, 2015.
- ^ a b c «Official Tournament Rules — NASPAWiki». scrabbleplayers.org. Retrieved July 25, 2021.
- ^ «Letter positions in Scrabble». scrabblestats.com. Archived from the original on April 24, 2016.
- ^ Tierney, John (May 24, 1998). «Humankind Battles for Scrabble Supremacy». The New York Times Magazine.
- ^ a b c d e f Fatsis, Stefan (2002). Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. ISBN 0-14-200226-7.
- ^ «James Brunot entry on Board Game Geek». boardgamegeek.com.
- ^ Edley, Joe; Williams, John D. Jr. (With) (2001). Everything Scrabble. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-04218-1.[page needed]
- ^ Fatsis, Stefan (July 7, 2001). Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. HMH. pp. 171–172. ISBN 978-0-547-52431-3.
- ^ a b Fatsis, Stefan (August 17, 2012). «The Case of the Stolen Blanks». Slate. Retrieved August 19, 2012.
Scrabble transitioned from living-room novelty—nearly 4 million sets were sold in 1954—to competitive passion in the 1960s, when it landed alongside chess, backgammon, and bridge in smoke-filled games parlors in New York City. … When the tiles were placed in bags during games, unscrupulous players could feel around for the blanks because they had no grooves, a tactic known as «brailling».
- ^ a b c «History of Scrabble». Scrabble-assoc.com. April 26, 2003. Archived from the original on March 16, 2010. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
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- ^ a b «Scrabble – a Brief History and Evolution of the Rules, 1949–1999». DonaldSauter.com. September 2010.
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- ^ game-by-game results for Marlon Hill in Albany, NY July 2010 at cross-tables.com
- ^
«[Loopful] Two Letter Words Allowed In Scrabble». Word Buff. Retrieved June 8, 2015. - ^ «SOWPODS — NASPAWiki». North American Scrabble Players Association.
- ^ «Australian Masters and State Team Challenge». www.scrabble.org.au. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
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- ^ «World English-Language Scrabble® Players Association Game Rules, Version 4.0» (PDF). October 1, 2019. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 11, 2021. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
- ^ «WESPA News: Scrabble Champions Tournament Announcement». WESPA.
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- ^ «Scrabble FAQ Contents». Archived from the original on August 27, 2005. Retrieved July 30, 2005.
- ^ a b c «830-point Game at the Lexington Scrabble Club». Wolfberg.net. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ a b c Fatsis, Stefan (October 26, 2006). «830! How a carpenter got the highest Scrabble score ever». Slate Magazine. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ game-by-game results for Joel Sherman in Stamford, CT 2011 at cross-tables.com
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- ^ «Round 5 scores». centrestar.co.uk. Retrieved January 21, 2012.
- ^ «Rik Kennedy-Toh Weibin annotated game (cross-tables.com)». Retrieved July 15, 2017.
- ^ «Meet ‘Mr. 850’ Toh Weibin». WESPA. January 2012. Retrieved July 15, 2017.
- ^ a b «World Record: Highest Losing Score». Dallasopen.com. Archived from the original on July 8, 2011. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ Coty Dolores Miranda (February 19, 2009). «World Scrabble record set in Ahwatukee tournament». The Arizona Republic. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ [1] Game summary
- ^ «Chew vs Kaufman». Math.toronto.edu. June 15, 1997. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ «2013 WYSC Stories». World Youth Scrable.
- ^ «2008 NSC Live Coverage, Round 5». Scrabble-assoc.com. Archived from the original on September 11, 2010. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ Based on the respective distribution of each tile, the odds of drawing MUZJIKS in order is the product of the fractions 2⁄98, 4⁄97, 1⁄96, 1⁄95, 9⁄94, 1⁄93, and 4⁄92. This value must then be multiplied by factorial of 7—the number of tiles for which the factorial is the number of combinations—to obtain the probability of drawing the tiles in any order.
- ^ Glenday, Craig (April 29, 2008). Guinness World Records 2008. Random House Publishing Group. p. 198. ISBN 978-0-553-58995-5. Retrieved March 24, 2011.
- ^ a b «Tournament records – All-time best». Scrabble.org.au. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ a b «WSC Player Information: Karl Khoshnaw». Retrieved April 27, 2006.
- ^ game-by-game results for James Leong in Brandon, MB 2015 at cross-tables.com
- ^ game-by-game results for Doug Brockmeier in Elmhurst, IL 2011 at cross-tables.com
- ^ game-by-game results for Chris Cree in Houston, TX 2007 at cross-tables.com
- ^ «Scrabble Association Archives – Nigel Richards, 7th Lim Boon Heng Cup, 22 Mar 2009». Singapore Scrabble Association. Retrieved December 10, 2010.
- ^ a b Record for the Highest Scoring Scrabble Move at scrabulizer.com
- ^ «Record for the Highest Scoring Scrabble Move». Scrabulizer.
- ^ «Alphabet City Light — Final Report». azspcs.com. September 26, 2014. Retrieved August 10, 2021.
- ^ McWhirter, Norris (1985). Guinness Book of World Records 1985. Sterling Publishing. ISBN 0-8069-0264-7.[page needed]
- ^ «A Computer Program Wins Its First Scrabble Tournament». The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2007. Retrieved September 13, 2009.
- ^ «quackle/quackle». September 21, 2020 – via GitHub.
- ^ «Scrabble for Amiga (1993)». MobyGames.
- ^ «Computer Scrabble for Commodore 64 (1984)». MobyGames.
- ^ «World of Spectrum — Computer Scrabble». World of Spectrum.
- ^ «Scrabble for Game Boy Advance — GameFAQs». gamefaqs.gamespot.com.
- ^ «Scrabble». Metacritic.
- ^ «Scrabble (USA) : Hasbro Interactive : Free Borrow & Streaming». Internet Archive. November 9, 1999.
- ^ «Scrabble». PlayStation.
- ^ «Scrabble — Kindle Store». www.amazon.com.
- ^ «Scrabble 2009». www.game.co.uk.
- ^ Henry, Lesley-Anne (September 27, 2007). «Slang word shock on Scrabble video game». The Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved January 2, 2011.
- ^ «Legal Troubles Mount for Scrabulous — Hasbro Sues for Infringement». efluxnews. July 27, 2008. Archived from the original on July 30, 2008.
- ^ «Facebook shuts off Scrabulous after Hasbro sues». Los Angeles Times. Bloomberg News. July 29, 2008. Archived from the original on August 5, 2008.
- ^ Sivaraman, Aarthi (December 15, 2008). «Hasbro withdraws suit against Scrabulous creator». Reuters. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ a b Foley, Stephen (April 8, 2004). «Mattel takes on Scrabulous in war of the words». The Independent. London. Retrieved April 8, 2008.
- ^ a b c Timmons, Heather (April 7, 2004). «Scrabble Tries to Fight a Popular Impostor at Its Own Game». The New York Times. Retrieved April 8, 2008.
- ^ «Facebook update spells A-N-G-E-R». The Daily Telegraph. Sydney, Australia. June 6, 2013.
- ^ «The Man Behind the Facebook Scrabble League». word-grabber.com. June 3, 2015. Retrieved March 18, 2017.
- ^ «How Scopely took over the Scrabble mobile game franchise from EA». venturebeat.com. March 8, 2020. Retrieved June 17, 2020.
- ^ «Cross words force Scrabble app developer back to drawing board». theaustralian.com.au. June 3, 2020. Retrieved June 17, 2020.
- ^ Voinov, Vitaly. 2010. Words should be fun: Scrabble as a tool for language preservation in Tuvan and other local languages. Language Documentation & Conservation 4. 213–230.
- ^ «The Hub Announces». Buzzerblog. Archived from the original on March 29, 2012. Retrieved March 25, 2011.
- ^ «Scarabeo – Sito ufficiale». editricegiochi.it. Retrieved October 12, 2013.
- ^ Warren, Jane. «Cut-throat world of competitive Scrabble as Allan Simmons is BANNED for cheating». The Express. Retrieved April 6, 2018.
- ^ New Tile Lock Scrabble: Amazon.co.uk: Toys & Games. ASIN 1223063151.
- ^ «Winning Moves Games Tile Lock Super Scrabble: Amazon.co.uk: Toys & Games». www.amazon.co.uk.
- ^ «Scrabble Word Finder».
- ^ «Prestige Scrabble». www.leisuretrends.co.uk.
- ^ «Mattel Scrabble Deluxe New Version». www.johnlewis.com.
- ^ «Scrabble Deluxe Edition Game | Scrabble». scrabble.hasbro.com.
- ^ «Scrabble Glass Edition». www.leisuretrends.co.uk.
- ^ «Large Print Scrabble». shop.rnib.org.uk.
- ^ «Large Print Scrabble». www.leisuretrends.co.uk.
- ^ «Braille Scrabble». shop.rnib.org.uk.
- ^ Scrabble Player’s Handbook. scrabbleplayershandbook.com.
Further reading[edit]
- Arneson, Erik (June 26, 2019). «How To Win at Scrabble and Words With Friends: How to Practice, Play, and Win Strategically». The Spruce Crafts.
- McElwee, Kevin (December 13, 2018). «Does Scrabble Need To Be Fixed?». Nautilus. Archived from the original on December 9, 2019. Retrieved December 15, 2018.
- «Scrabble as a tool for language preservation in Tuvan». ScholarSpace. Manoa, Hawaii. An article relating how Scrabble has been adapted to other languages, describing how it was prepared for the Tuvan languages, and giving directions about how to adapt it.
- Wallace, Robert (December 14, 1953). «A Man Makes a Best-Selling Game — Scrabble — and Achieves His Ambition (Spelled Out Above): Little Business In the Country». LIFE Magazine. p. 101.
External links[edit]
- Scrabble at Hasbro.com
- Scrabble at MattelGames.com
- Scrabble at BoardGameGeek
- .GCG specification describes a computer file format for recording and annotating Scrabble games.
- Scrabble Word Database (Multi-language)
- U.S. Patent 2,752,158 – Game apparatus – Expired patent for the jagged edges of bonus squares, which were added so that one need not lift previously placed tiles in order to see the bonus.
- Player associations
- Association of British Scrabble Players
- NASPA Games (formerly North American Scrabble Players Association; sanctions club and tournament play in North America)
- Scrabble Australia
- World English-Language Scrabble Players Association (WESPA)
Are you fond of playing Scrabble? Are you looking for ways to improve your vocabulary skills? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this free scrabble word finder tool is for you! Discover new words, use it as a handy cheat board, or utilize it as a winning strategy. However you plan on using the cheat tool, you will surely find it incredibly functional!
Scrabble Game Essentials
Scrabble is a classic board game that has been enjoyed by many generations. The rules of the popular game are pretty simple. Each set includes a 15 x 15 tiled Scrabble board and 100 pieces of letter tiles — bearing consonants and vowels. These tiles have corresponding points in them. A game consists of a minimum of 2 players and a maximum of 4 players. Each player gets a combination of 7 letters on their rack for every round. Using his or her tiles, players take turns in forming words (accepted by the Scrabble dictionary) on the board, either sidewards or downwards.
What is the Scoring System?
Each letter tile has a corresponding point value. This depends on how rare the letter is and how difficult it can be to use and lay it on the board. A common letter like A, E or I has a lower value while the highest-point letters Q and Z have 10 points. Take note that there are 2 blank tiles included in the bag that can be used as a representative of any letter. These blank tiles have no point values.
1 Point: A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T & U
2 Points: D & G
3 Points: B, C, M & P
4 Points: F, H, V, W & Y
5 Points: K
8 Points: J & X
10 Points: Q & Z, the most difficult letter tiles
You will also find score multipliers scattered around the Scrabble board. When a tile is laid on one of these squares, its value or the whole word’s value will be multiplied double or triple. In other words, you can get a triple word score only by smartly placing the word on the board.
How Does the Game End?
Once there are no more tiles in the bag, and one of the players has already placed his or her tiles on the board, the game ends. The player with the highest score wins.
Scrabble Cheat
The biggest challenge of playing Scrabble is forming Scrabble words out of seven letters while making sure that it’s well connected with all the letters laid out on the board. Even long-time Scrabble players will find a hard time figuring something out at one point or another. This word generator is explicitly made to complement and improve your game skills. Use our online Scrabble solver to unscramble the jumbled letters on your rack and maintain your winning streak in this fun word game.
You may be having second thoughts about using scramble solvers while playing Scrabble or a different puzzle game, but we believe that the only way to improve your command of the language is by learning new words regularly. We encourage even the game experts to use this Scrabble cheat board as a training tool to help you improve your lexicon. The best thing about it is that it’s free! Use and abuse it to win your favorite board games and better your vocabulary and crossword puzzle skills.
Scrabble Solver Features
• Generates high-scoring words, accepted by the game dictionary, from a combination of letters.
• The search box accepts up to 15 letters and up to 2 blank tiles.
• By using advanced options, you can unscramble letters to match a specific pattern or get words of a certain length to place them in a desired position on the board game, form words with adjacent letters, or get rid of as many as possible unplayed letters.
• No registration is required to enjoy all the benefits of this cheat tool and get the highest-scoring word for any handful of letters.
• Free for unlimited usage so you can play countless word scramble games and always be the game winner.
Top 5 Scrabble Tips and Tricks
Aiming to be a master Scrabble® player? Here are 4 proven powerful tools to help you win the next game with your friends.
1. Go for Bingo
This is how you get a big score in a single turn in Scrabble the bingo! You get 50 points by getting rid of the seven unplayed letters on your rack all at once. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, though! You will find using this handy jumble solver to be helpful in achieving this Scrabble feat.
2. Look for a Hook
Hooking is the strategy of adding a single letter to the existing word in order to create a completely new one. An example of these is turning «rain» into «brain.» Employ the advanced search features to achieve this result.
3. Memorize High-scoring Short Words
Placement is key in playing Scrabble. Toward the end of the puzzle game, the board is slowly getting filled up with tiles. During this time, It will be extremely helpful to play high-scoring two-letter words and 3-letter Scrabble words. Use this online cheat for Scrabble to practice and memorize high-scoring three-letter words that will help you play the last extra letters.
4. Score with one Syllable Moves
Be on the lookout for words on the board that can be extended by placing prefixes and suffixes. This is another excellent strategy to continue scoring even through the later part of the game when the board becomes crowded already.
5. Aim to Lay on the Multipliers
The best strategy to win big points in Scrabble is by targetting the multipliers on the board. The premium word squares on the board are DL (Double Letter), TL (Triple Letter), DW (Double Word), and TW (Triple Word). Try to achieve as many special squares as possible. According to the rules, if a word is formed covering two premium squares, the score is either doubled and then redoubled or tripled and then retripled. Gain a higher score when you play this strategy using a 10-point tile!
Scrabble Words and Official Dictionaries
These are the dictionaries acknowledged by the official Scrabble game:
Official Scrabble Players Dictionary or OSPD
This is a popular reference for Scrabble words no longer than eight letters. The list includes other pieces of information, such as parts of speech and brief definitions.
Official Tournament and Club Word List or OTCWL
This dictionary version is used in regular competitive play. It is a list of all acceptable words, including those up to fifteen letters, the longest word that can be played on a Scrabble board. Unlike OSPD, OTCWL is a simple alphabetical list. It is only available to NASPA members at the NASPA Store.
SOWPODS
The term is an anagram of OSPD (Official Scrabble Players Dictionary) and OSW (Official Scrabble Words). SOWPODS is the official dictionary used in English-language tournaments hosted by most countries outside the USA.
Our completely free cheat site to find Scrabble words is based on these extensive dictionaries. Use this anagram solver for your next game, and we guarantee you a competitive play!
Scrabble FAQs
Here are some more interesting facts about your favorite classic board game!
The Highest Scoring Scrabble Word
The highest score recorded in the history of Scrabble was made by Karl Khoshnaw in 1982. He made his move by forming the word “caziques,” defined as a native Indian chief in areas dominated primarily by Spanish culture. Apart from using the 10-point tile Q, he achieved a bingo and landed on a triple-triple. This move resulted in a whopping 392 points.
The Longest Words Played in the History of Scrabble
The North American Scrabble Players Association or NASPA has an official record of all the impressive feats in the world of Scrabble. One of the most prominent ones includes the longest words played by the game champions. These words are “discontentments” by Ed Liebfried in 2005 and “reconsideration” by Ken Clark in 1990.
- Unscramble
- Scrabble Word Finder
Enter ‘?’ or a space for blank tiles. You can enter up to 2 wildcards.
What is the Scrabble Word Finder?
Scrabble Word Finder is a simple but helpful word cheat tool that helps Scrabble players find the highest-scoring words by searching the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary to discover the perfect words for your game board. You can use blank tiles by adding a (‘?’) or space (‘ ‘) and choose from several advanced options to ensure that you find the right word to complete your board and guarantee victory!
Scrabble has two massive word game dictionaries, and they undoubtedly have new words that you haven’t come across yet, so I can’t promise that our Scrabble Solver tool will guarantee any Scrabble Player victory, but it will set you on the right path.
Our Word Cheat will give you the following information about each word when you unscramble it
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A list of the popular game dictionaries your word is available, such as Scrabble US, Scrabble UK, and Words With Friends
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The score for all the words and the value of each letter tile
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The definition of a particular word and part of speech
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A long list of all words and anagrams jumbled inside your word
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A list of related words
- A list of related word lists and the word lists that this word is contained in
Scrabble is very similar to Words With Friends and WordFeud so don’t hesitate to try our Scrabble Cheat, Words With Friends Cheat, WordFeud Cheat, and our other word finders; it is an anagram solver that word game enthusiasts will love using for all their favorite word games!
Why Should You Use a Scrabble Cheat Tool?
Are you tired of losing in Scrabble? Our Scrabble Cheat tool makes winning easier by making words from your letters, including blank tiles, into playable words. You will learn new words, find words more quickly, and remember which words/anagrams are allowed. Overall, it will help you win more often!
Scrabble uses multiple dictionaries with hundreds of thousands of words. It is a highly complex task to keep track of every playable word — that’s another benefit of our Scrabble Cheat tool. We have updated versions of all of the Official Scrabble Word Lists.
- Don’t think of it as a Scrabble Cheat. Our Word Solver tool is simply a Helper to teach you to play Scrabble, find words, and increase your vocabulary skills.
- It will help you out of a jam when you have a scrambled mess of tiles and you can’t find words.
- A lot of people use a Scrabble Cheat tool; this Word Finder will level the playing field.
- You can use our Scrabble Dictionary Checker to win challenges and check for new words and word jumbles.
- Learning how to play is your primary goal, which will make you an unstoppable Scrabble Master!
- Increase your word scramble game skills
- Even crossword puzzles will be a breeze from now on with our advanced Crossword Solver! In fact, any popular word game that uses a crossword puzzle style setup will be no trouble at all.
Learning how to play is a great outcome, but it isn’t the only outcome. You will also gain an advanced vocabulary and an intense understanding of what all
Scrabble words mean.. Playing Scrabble will be fun again.
Word games are so much fun until you get stuck! Now you don’t have to worry, which is excellent because emotions can cloud your judgment, according to Bernard Golden, Ph.D.
So keep calm, and you will do better.
The main thing to remember about Scrabble is that the more high scoring words you know, the better chance you have of using them at the appropriate time.
Higher scores = More wins!
How to Use Our Scrabble Word Finder Tool — Advanced Options
- Enter your letter tiles into the Word Scrabble search box, including question marks ‘?’ or a space for blank tiles or wildcards.
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Choose an official Scrabble Dictionary Or ENABLE Dictionary
- NWL — TWL06 (United States, Canada and Thailand Dictionary)
- CSW — SOWPODS (All other countries)
- ENABLE — Words With Friends
- Choose Word Options
- Find words starting with certain letters. (optional)
- Choose the ending tile or letter (optional)
- Choose the Word Length to filter words by length
- Click the magnifying glass, and our Word Finder will unscramble all valid words with your letter tiles.
Our cheat tools work with Scrabble, Scrabble GO, Words With Friends, Word Feud, Jumble Words, and as an anagram solver for other word games.
Other Languages
- Scrabble Solver en español
- Deutsch Scrabble Word Cheat
- French Scrabble Word Maker
Basics of Scrabble
Scrabble is a classic word game owned by Hasbro. Two to four players can score points by placing a tile with a letter on it onto a Scrabble board to form words, which has a 15×15 grid of squares, which is 225 squares.
The tiles letters must make words in crossword puzzle style.
The Scrabble words can read left to right in rows or downward in columns. All Scrabble Words be included in one of the Official Scrabble Word dictionaries.
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NWL (NASPA Word List)
— USA, Canada, Thailand — formerly TWL
-
CSW (Collins Scrabble Words)
— All other countries — formerly SOWPODS
To get a better idea of how the game is played, take a look at this example Scrabble game.
At the start of the game you will have a Scrabble board, 100 letter tiles, a letter bag, and up to 4 letter racks.
Choose your dictionary (NWL, CWL) based on your country of origin. Place all tiles into the letter bag, shake them up and draw to see who goes first.
The player that draws the tile closest to the letter «A» or if a blank tile is drawn that player starts.
After the turns are chosen, return the tiles to the bag and shake them again. Each player will then draw seven (7) tiles and place them on their letter rack. Now the fun begins!
- Words can be placed either across or down. Diagonal words are not allowed.
- Each player should tally their score at the end of his or her turn.
- The players take turns to the left.
- On each turn the player must add one or more letters to an already played word to receive the points for full word built.
- If the letters played touches any adjacent words, it must also form a word in order to be playable.
- Letters cannot be moved or shifted after they are already played.
- Blank tiles can be used in place of any letter.
- You can use a turn to exchange any amount of your letters.
- You can challenge a word before the next turn starts. If the challenge is lost by the player, they the losing party must take their tiles back and they lose their next turn.
The game is over when all letters are gone from the letter bag and one of the players has no more tiles. The game also ends if there are no possible plays left.
Winning Without a Scrabble Word Solver
Here are a few Scrabble Tips to help you unscramble letters, become just as good as the Scrabble game experts, and win every game without the use of a Word Finder Tool
- Look for 7 Letter Words to score easy points with a Bingo Bonus!
-
While playing a word game, whether it is the Scrabble board game, Words With Friends, and other word games, be sure to plan and use your letters wisely. There is a limited number of each letter tile in the game.
- Try to use unplayed letters to achieve a higher score!
-
Be sure to block your opponent whenever possible. To keep the highest score, you need to play defense. If you see a possible word and have a chance to block the next player from getting it, take that opportunity and win games!
-
Try to find a combination of letters that usually go together like Br, Th, Sh, Ch, etc.
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Adding the letter ‘s’ to the end of an existing word on a Scrabble board to pluralize it can create an entirely new word.
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Utilize the bonus squares or «premium squares». There are 8 triple word score squares, 17 double word score squares, 12 triple letter score squares, and 24 double letter squares.
- TW = Triple Word
- TL = Tripe Letter
- DW = Double Word
- DL = Double Letter
-
Adding common prefixes or suffixes is also an awesome tactic to find a valid list of words. If the word LOAD is played, add «ED» for LOADED or «UN» for UNLOADED
-
Try to find high value words like words with Q, X,
Z or J. -
Learn two letter words and three-letter words because
When played properly, have the ability to boost a game score by up to 50 points per game. -
You can always our Scrabble Word Generator you are out of options.
-
Have a look at our Scrabble Help and Tips post. We have several strategies that will help you win every game.
-
Learn the rules of Scrabble like the back of your hand!
Ready to Play Scrabble?
Want to play Scrabble online? You are in luck! Android and iOS both have online Scrabble games. Scrabble Go is available to download for free.
Scrabble Go was recently updated with great new features! The newest version includes the following:
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Live games with family and friends
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You can watch opponents’ moves in real-time, just like in an offline Scrabble game!
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Explore themed events and adventures, including duels and puzzle paths.
- Android download
- iOS download
More About Scrabble
The legacy of Scrabble began in 1933 with Alfred Butts, a former architect. Alfred teamed up with James Brunot, and the pair named the board game «Scrabble,» and trademarked it in 1948.
- Scrabble is over 90 years old
- The original names were Lexico and then Criss-Cross Words before becoming Scrabble.
- Scrabble is popular worldwide. It is sold in 121 countries and available in 31 different languages.
- The original version of Scrabble was played without a board.
- Scrabble is ranked as the second-best board game in U.S. History, second only to Monopoly.
These are the Official Word Lists (lexicon) for Scrabble and Words With Friends. Each dictionary has different words included, so be sure to know what words are valid in which word game.
-
CSW (Formerly SOWPODS)
CSW is an acronym for Collins Scrabble Words. The former name, SOWPODS, was an acronym for Official Scrabble Players Dictionary and OSW Official Scrabble Words. This word list is used in most countries, excluding USA,Thailand, and Canada.
-
NWL (Formerly TWL,OTCWL,OWL)
NWL is an acronym for NASPA Word List. The previous name, OTCWL, was an acronym for Official Tournament and Club Word List. This is the official word authority for USA and Canada.
-
ENABLE
ENABLE is an acronym for Enhanced North American Benchmark Lexicon. This is the official word list for Words With Friends, although the developers do add their own words to the list. Use our Words With Friends Word Finder for the most up-to-date word list.
Scrabble FAQs
Take a look at these frequently asked questions and facts all about Scrabble. We frequently update these FAQs as more comments/questions come in, so if you need anything, feel free to contact us.
-
How Many Squares Are on a Scrabble Board?
The standard board is 15×15, which makes 225 squares total. It is the same for Words With Friends.
-
How Many Bonus Squares are on a Scrabble Board?
Bonuses are a great way to give your scores a boost! Lucky for you, there are 61 bonus spaces. Here is a breakdown of each of the bonuses:
- 8 Triple Word
- 12 Triple Letter Score
- 17 Double Word Score
- 24 Double Letter Score
-
What is the Highest Scoring Scrabble Word
Technically OXYPHENBUTAZONE, is the highest scoring word with a possible 1778 points, but it has never been successfully played (at last check).
A more attainable word would be MUZJIKS, it is seven letter word worth 29 points without bonuses. According to a Redditor, your chances of drawing these at the start of the game is 1 in 347,222,222,222!
-
What are the Highest Scoring Two-Letter words and Three Letter Words?
These are the top 3 two letter words and three-letter words. They aren’t very common, so don’t be disappointed if you haven’t heard of them.
-
2 Letter
- QI (11 points)
(Noun) the circulating life force whose existence and properties are the basis of much Chinese philosophy and medicine.
- ZA (11 points)
(Noun) an old solfeggio name for B flat; the seventh harmonic, as heard in the or aeolian string; — so-called by Tartini. It was long considered a false, but is the true note of the chord of the flat seventh. (Webster Dictionary)
- ZO (11 points)
(Noun) An indigenous people of Burma.
- QI (11 points)
-
3 Letter
- ZZZ (30 points)
This implies that a person is sleeping
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ZIZ (21 points)
A giant, griffin-like bird in Jewish mythology.
-
ZUZ (21 points)
(Noun) An ancient Hebrew silver coin, one quarter of a shekel.
- ZZZ (30 points)
-
-
How Many Words Start With Q and Z?
Z and Q are the highest scoring letters in Scrabble. They are worth a whopping 10 points each. Knowing these word is a good idea for each Scrabble pro or noob.
There are 1,118 words starting with Z and 1,352 words starting with Q
Other Similar Word Games & Board Games like Scrabble
Scrabble isn’t the only popular game out there. There are too many to list! Most of these word games have a similar scoring system, so they will be easy to learn. So if you like playing word games, here are a few of them below:
- Words With Friends
- Word Connect
- Word Cross
- Wordscapes
- WordFeud
- Crossword Puzzles
- Word Cookies
- Word Trip
This site is for entertainment purposes only and we are not affiliated with Hasbro inc, Mattel inc, Zynga Inc, or any of their affiliates in anyway. Scrabble is manufactured by Mattel inc in Canada and throughout the rest of the world (excluding U.S.) and by Hasbro inc in the U.S. and Canada. All intellectual property rights belong to the respective companies.
Using Our Word Scramble Solver
Works for Word Puzzles, Scrabble, Words With Friends, and Other Scrambled Word Games!
Did you come to this website (a word game solver) trying to make sense of a bunch of scrambled letters on your tile rack?
Or perhaps you’re wondering how your best friend (the mild mannered accountant) is suddenly an expert on Middle English literature,
Paleontology, and advanced political science — based on the odd set of words they just played in scrabble? Or maybe you just need
some help solving the daily word scramble puzzle…. Either way, we’re happy to have you!
This word solver is designed to answer one question: What words can be made with these letters? What do these letters spell?
(ok, fine, that was two questions… but you get the point. Give us scrambled letters, we will give you a word list of words
you can make with those letters. Subject to any other limits you know about the word scramble answers.)
Simply enter your letter(s) in the box (see above) and hit the big friendly green button! That will send our fast word unscrambler into action, unscrambling letters to generate a word list that you can use to solve the word puzzle game. Got blank tiles on your scrabble rack? Not a problem, our scrambled letters word finder is designed to accept wildcard characters (that can be any letter) and use them to generate scrambled word ideas.
How Does the Word Scramble Solver Work?
Behind the scenes, we’ve got a very fast anagram solver powered by an open source word dictionary, the same one which is used by most of the major
cell phone word games. By default, we sort the word list by word length (7 letter word ideas, 6 letter word ideas…), start at the top of the scrambled word list and see which one fits the word scramble game board best. This helps you figure out how to fit a word onto a scrabble board or get
the right word placement on a word puzzle grid.
We’ve updated our scrambled word list over time, to filter out bad words and make sure our word scramble ideas are up to date. The anagram solver is
smart enough to use blank tiles (if you have wildcard characters) to plug any missing letters. By default, our scrabble word list matches the same
basic rules for valid words in scrabble: not a proper noun, any common very is allowed. We have a few nouns which straddle the line (where the name
of a specific place or thing has become generic) — in those cases, we assume the broader use and include the word.
But wait! That’s not all we have to offer (beyond word scramble words). Need to make your own word scramble (A word scramble printable)? We’ve got you covered,
with our word scramble worksheet maker
Need a make a word? Try our word scrambler (free)
to scramble letters into new words? We’ve got that as well. We even have a mobile phone
Game where you make words from letters.
We’re the ultimate word scramble cheat sheet.
Playing Scrabble or Words with Friends? We’ve got versions for you as well. This word scramble solver sorts words by word length. Those
scrabble word maker versions will calculate the number of scrabble points or words with friends points and rank words by point value. You
can use the advanced options in the solver to build off of words which are already on the board.
What words can i make with these letters?
That’s the fun part. Enter your letters into the word scramble solver and see what it gives you.
(The word list was edited to remove bad words, but most of the rest of the dictionary is available)
Frequently Asked Questions
Does The Solver Allow Wildcard Characters?
Yes! The wordsolver supports blank tiles (Scrabble) or wildcard characters. These tiles will be
checked against all of the possible letters, vastly increasing the number of unscrambled words.
Enter the wildcard character as a * or ? in the word solver letter box.
What is Word Scramble Game? What is jumble word?
Word scramble games are like football or soccer for the human mind: a big mess of letters pushing, shoving, and shouting to be
sorted into the correct order. You probably know them as Scrabble, Words With Friends, Word Cookies, WordFeud, or any of the
many other cell phone games people play. Word scramble puzzles can also be found in the Sunday paper, relying on
the solver’s ability to recognize and transpose letters appropriately to solve the puzzles.
What About Scrabble or Words With Friends?
This unscramble words finder can be used to find words in your letters for Scrabble or Words With Friends. We also
have a Scrabble Helper and
Words With Friends helper that
will give you scrabble points and words with friends points. These also support wild card characters.
We think it is more fun to use simple tools (like a decoder) as a scrabble word finder or scrabble cheat. Our tools can give you some scrabble word ideas (including using blank tiles) and let you find the highest scoring word from there. Our advanced options give you a way to filter by first letter within the valid words you can play. The same approach also works for
text twist.
How To Play Word Scramble Games — Scrabble vs. Boggle
From the perspective of a scramble solver, Scrabble and boggle are far more similar that you would imagine. Both are basically
just differently structured paths through the same basic dictionary search. In the case of Scrabble, we have a set of possible letters
from your Scrabble Rack — plus at least one letter from the board — and are looking for combinations of these letters that are in the
Scrabble dictionary. That’s what our word scramble finder is for.
For Boggle, we’re doing a two dimensional search of adjacent letters (all the possible paths) and checking to see
if any of the words are contained in the dictionary. Remember the potential hit-rate for any specific permutation is low: Judging from
what we saw above, the odds of a random letter pattern being a word in the dictionary are less than one percent.
The math is complicated but you can even calculate the odds of getting another piece. Our decoder doesn’t address this
but we’ve done a few drawings of a word scramble solver tool with an odds table built it. We have something like this already for hangman
(calculates odds of a given letter being present in the word). The word scramble solver version is a puzzle solver and word unscrambler tool.
How Do You Solve Word Scramble Puzzles? (Game Designer Perspective)
Speaking as someone who teaches game design, there are three basic ways to construct a puzzle where the solver has to guess a word.
- Provide all the letters but transpose them: (Word Scramble Puzzles)
- Provide some letters and ask the solver to guess the missing letters (Hangman Puzzles)
- Challenge players to use other knowledge to identify relevant words (Synonyms, Antonyms, and Decoding Clues)
The first of these puzzles is basically a combinatoric attack on the human mind, seeking to overload the solver with possible
ways to unscramble letters to make words. If we’re talking about a group of 7 letters (not all of which need to be used), it
turns out there are many possible arrangements. There are 7 factorial (7!) ways to arrange a set of unique letters — this works
out to 7! = 5040 ways to place them in order. When you consider that we don’t need to play every letter, this opens up even
more potential ways to put the letters in order: 7! + 6! + 5! + 4! + 3! + 2! + 1! = 5912 possible arrangements to scramble word.
The good news is not every possible word scramble solutions to unscramble letter ideas are actual English words. When you match these jumbled word answers up against
an actual unscramble dictionary (as we do in our word scramble solver), only a handful actually match dictionary words. Judging from some
experimentation with the unscramble words solver, most seven letter combinations map to between 15 and 50 possible English words.
So to solve a word scramble puzzle, you need to be able to unscramble words quickly see fragments of words and creatively narrow them down to the
most useful potential solutions. Our word scramble solver does this: it looks through a dictionary to unscramble letters to make words from your letters. Check out our boggle solver (a twist on wordscramble).
As we mentioned above, we have some advanced options to help you make even more words from your letters. First, the solver supports
using wildcard characters. Each of these can represent any of the 26 possible letters. Be careful, however. Including a wildcard will
effectively increase your number of potential arrangements by 26 — so those 5040 potential arrangements just became about 145,000 (we
can’t just multiply by 26 since there are some permutations of the letters which would exclude the wild card character). To include a
wildcard character in your answer, simple enter a * or ? for the letter. It will show the wildcard letter as highlighted
piece of text in the list of possible solutions.
The word scramble solver can also help with unscrambling fragments of an existing word.
You can identify scrambled letters that must be at the beginning or end of a word. You can even provide a list of letters where you want to
build off of only one letter (for a scramble game like Scrabble). Take look at our advanced options.
The good news? Adding clues like this actually makes it easier to find words to play, since it reduces the number of possible words (for what is the word games or a scramble word search puzzle).
Word Search Solver — Advanced Strategies
A higher level word search puzzle often needs to be broken into parts. You’re looking at multiple paths through a web of letters,
potentially constrained by limitations on the shape and length of a path. A wordsearch puzzle can be fed into one of our boggle solver tools. We have up to a 6 x 6 matrix and it accepts the letters as a string for easy setup. Other formats can be
easily fed into the word unscrambler and the word list consolidated. This is good when you are trying to solve for a single area.
Puzzle cracking tends to accelerate once you unscramble word options. Once you found word ideas, the wordsearch will fall quickly as the potential solution space narrows. (try our word unscrambler for a scramble words list)
How Do You Solve Other Word Puzzles?
Did you think we would just leave you hanging? (Trick question, we are the Hanging Hyena…). Here’s how to solve the other two types
of word puzzle problems. Here’s a different view of what you need for a word scramble cheat.
Hangman is basically just pattern matching. We do this with our hangman solver. If you know something
about computer programming, you should be able to write a script to do this using a pattern matching technique like regular expressions.
The same basic approach works for crossword puzzles. The typical crossword solver look at the letter pattern using known puzzle letter solutions and word length. A solved column can also be used to force solutions to the rows that cross it. The clue can narrow your options down to the correct answer. This is enough to crack a crossword game. Many hidden words puzzles work under similar principles, forcing you to solve the target word via patterns and clues.
Meaning based puzzles are significantly harder — because the matching process can get very fuzzy (since people often refer to things
multiple ways) and there are very few good databases for searching context. Most problem solving approaches need to address those
two needs, at least narrowly (for the specific domain of the puzzles). This is why context based questions («what is your first pet»)
are often used as security questions for sensitive information — they can be almost impossible to guess without some shared context. Harder than a word unscramble game which can be cracked in a dictionary attack.
How Do Good Human Solvers Unscramble Words Faster?
A good human word solver will break their rack into parts and unscramble these letters quickly. They aren’t just grabbing random letters, most use standard methods to crack a jumble word.
- First, look for prefixes and suffixes.
- Next, look for letters that are commonly paired together. Letter pairs such as «TH» or «CH».
- Separate vowels and consonants. Most words alternate the two. Start recombining them.
- Look for English Root Words and common loan words from other languages.
How Do you Solve: What words do these letters make?
Wondering What words can you make with these letters?
Easy. Simply enter your letters into the word solver and hit the big green button. The word scramble solver will show all scrambled words which those letters can make. By the way, this is the same answer as What can I spell with these letters?
What is word scramble game?
Any word game where you need to words from scrambled letters. This includes Scrabble, Words With Friends, etc. Basically anything where you rearrange letters to make a word out of scrambled letters.
How can I make a lot of words?
One really good way to find lots of words in a game is to find your «base word»: usually either
a root word or popular noun / verb and start tossing prefixes and suffixes on the ends. Keep swapping
them around until you crank out a ton of words. This works great for increasing your Boggle score
by showing you what words can you make with the letters?
How can I do better at Scrabble? How to make scrabble words?
Well, one option is our Scrabble Helper. But
if you’re going for more «long term» improvement, you want to build your vocabulary and puzzle skills.
Don’t spend time memorizing the dictionary,
however — you’ll get more mileage from memorizing lists of short words (such as
two letter words and
three letter words).
Skimming common root words is also good.
English does have quirks. There are a handful of words which break the rules. These were often also
borrowed from another language. Somewhere along the line, people started abusing them.
These evade most of the tricks for making words from your letters.
The only trick for these words is to learn them.
Word games are a good way to do this. The more you play word games
and puzzles,the better you will know English. Using scratch paper can help if you’re a visual person.
More About Hanging Hyena
This word scramble maker is designed to load very quickly and look great on mobile phones.
So if you are playing a word game (such as Scrabble or Words With Friends)
and need a little help with unscrambling the answers, our word finder (the unscramble words cheat) has
you covered. Please bookmark this page so you can find it against quickly.
You can play free online word scramble games on this site as well.
Our letter scrambler sorts the letters in a word into random order. The player needs to sort the scrambled letter tiles into the right order. Don’t worry — we give a few hints along the way (such as
the letters changing color). That scrambled word game is mindless fun and good exercise for your brain.
While all of that is good, it takes more than that to be the most comprehensive
word scramble solver site on the Internet. And we most certainly deliver in that department.
We work both ways — we scramble words and letters, depending on what you need for your unscramble words game.
Need a word scrambler
to scramble letters into words? We’ve got that as well.
Free Printable Word Scramble Puzzles
But wait! There is more! In addition to our word scramble game online, we have a free word scramble maker where you
can make your own
worksheet. This printable puzzle is useful for
ice-breakers, classroom exercises, and study aids. Simply enter the list of words you want the kids
to study and the word scramble generator will do the rest. Some people refer to this tool as a word jumble maker,
word scramble creator, or word scramble generator.
The word search maker can generate hidden word puzzles.
Whatever you call the, our printable worksheets are designed
to help parents, teachers, sports coaches, and students.
We even have a few pre-compiled sets of words ready for you to use.
(for example, a Christmas Word Scramble!) No download required — and you can even print an answer sheet with a clue list.
No synonym lists, at least not yet.
Need to solve (find all scramble words)? We have boggle solvers (4×4, 5×5, 6×6) and a word search generator.
These feed off the same text file as our main word solver.
Of course, if you’re in school it’s important to keep your grades up during these digital learning days. That’s why we
created a Finals Calculator to make sure your final grade is still on track. This simple
calculator handles the essential question every student asks: What do I need to get on my final to pass? Because in reality,
if you’re bored enough to read this far down the page, you’ve probably been too busy with words with friends,
boggle solving, playing word chums, or using
another word scramble cheat this spring… [cue Ferris Bueller’s Day Off post-credits scene]
And of course, that’s just the beginning. Any word puzzle that involves scrambled letters is in our wheelhouse.
We have crossword puzzle makers, a word generator, letter unscrambler, spelling tools, daily jumble solver, word search
makers, worksheets, cryptograms (several cryptogram games, actually), the best Hangman solver on the web, cipher decoders, and much more.
We aim to be your
puzzle solving site of choice (jumbled letters, mixed up words, scrambled text, or any other puzzle). And of course, your source for solutions,
word collect cheat, word scramble answers, and word descrambler tools.
What other Word Tools Do You Offer (Beyond Word Scrambles)?
Looking for another online word scramble decoder resource or app from the app store? Never fear, we’ve got plenty of other
things to help you out. If you’re looking for printable word scramble puzzles, take
a look at our printable puzzle maker. You can use it to
generate a word scramble worksheet, word search, or crossword puzzle. Want to just
play a word puzzle game? Check out our word scramble game.
Need a version of the word scramble solver with points? We have a version for
Scrabble and Words With Friends.
Other Original Word Scramble Resources (Versions & Printables):
WWF Points,
Printables,
Game
Incidentally, with everyone on lockdown: we found scramble worksheets to be a great way to keeping kids learning as a word scramble activity.
The scramble worksheets you create are a great way to help kids learn vocabulary and spelling (spelling scramble words).
They need to know how to spell the vocabulary word in order to finish the assignment. Thus — our word jumble creator! (And for parents struggling to remember stuff from twenty years ago, use our word lists for word scramble help!) Plus we have a tool if you need to scramble a word.
We aim to be the web’s best word scramble solver. Plus we know how to scramble words (in a sentence). If you see something missing
or need a custom letter scramble solver for a puzzle game, feel free to contact us below…
Please send all feedback, complaints, and lucrative sponsorship deals to admin@hanginghyena.com (page: wordsolver).
This Website is copyright © 2012 — 2023 Performance Ingenuity LLC. All Rights Reserved. We like cookies and use them on the site, per our Privacy Policy.
You can say you don’t care if you win or lose at Scrabble, but you may very well be in the minority. Even former President Barack Obama, one of United States’ most high-profile Scrabble enthusiasts, isn’t above boasting about his wins. «It’s his favorite game to play,» then-White House communications director Robert Gibbs said in a 2008 interview with The Independent.
And Obama’s not the only famous Scrabble devotee. Former president Richard Nixon was an avid player. So is actor Daniel Radcliffe, who once had a spirited real-life battle with Harry Potter’s nemesis Draco Malfoy (aka Tom Felton). Late author Vladimir Nabokov, famous for his novel «Lolita,» was a skilled player. Even Queen Elizabeth II is reported to enjoy a royal game of Scrabble [source: McSmith].
Not bad for a pastime invented during the Great Depression. In 1931, out-of-work architect Alfred Mosher Butts came up with a game that he first called Lexiko, then Criss Cross Words. He spent several years tinkering before settling on the rules, now familiar to all Scrabble players: You draw seven letters and try to make words on a board with a 15-by-15 grid. Each letter scores specific points that roughly go along with how hard it is to fit the letter into a word. If an opponent challenges an unusual word, it had better be in the dictionary, or you’ll have to remove it and lose a turn.
Butts’ game didn’t meet with much success initially. But in the 1940s, another game maven, James Brunot, took over. He renamed the game Scrabble and by 1952, it had become a sensation [source: Fatsis].
Scrabble aficionados, like the ones we just mentioned, may memorize long lists of unusual words to win their bragging rights. But casual players can improve their games by learning just a handful of useful entries. You can impress — and even beat — your friends by blitzing them with high-scoring words, or by sneaking in common but strategic words that get rid of unwanted letters. Remember to make use of the double and triple squares to leverage your score on almost any word. And always look for what players call a «bingo,» the 50 extra points you get for using all your tiles on one play.
Now let’s look at 20 words that every Scrabble player should know.
Contents
- Za
- Muzjiks
- Aerie
- Caziques
- Faqir
- Jousted
- Quixotry
- Jukebox
- Zax
- Queue
- Chutzpah
- Xi
- Syzygy
- Wagyu
- Yo
- Zymurgy
- Bezique
- Flapjack
- Qanat
- Aa
20: Za
Challenge! That might be your first instinct, thinking there’s no way this is a word. But «za» is now accepted as slang for pizza and appears in the NASPA Word List 2020. NASPA stands for North American Scrabble Players Association, and it is the final authority for acceptable words in the U.S. and Canada.
Our two-letter word may not be much to look at, but «za» packs a big punch: With 10 points for the «z,» it’ll earn you least 11 total. Hit a triple letter square and you can score 31. Add pepperoni and you’ve got a meal.
19: Muzjiks
Muzjiks are Russian peasants — or so they were called under the tzar (another handy word to know). In Scrabble, «muzjiks» gives you the highest possible opening play. Put the «z» on the double letter square for an initial score of 39. All opening plays score a double word — that makes 78. Add 50 for a bingo, the use of all seven letters in your rack. With a total of 128, you’re off to a terrific start.
18: Aerie
An aerie is an eagle’s nest located on a cliff or some other high location. In Scrabble, the word is a handy way to get rid of four vowels in one fell swoop. You only score five points, but it beats turning your tiles in for new ones and losing a turn in the process.
17: Caziques
When Spanish explorers first reached the West Indies, they found tribes of Indians who described their chiefs using this word. The conquistadors applied the word, which can also be spelled «caciques,» to all native chiefs.
It also refers to a tropical bird similar to an oriole. In a game in England in 1982, Dr. Karl Khoshnaw set the record for the highest single word score in Scrabble competition. He played «caziques» across two triple word squares for a total score of 392.
16: Faqir
«Q» is the best of letters and the worst of letters. It gives you 10 points when you use it, but drags down your score if you end the game holding it. Thinking of «q» words is always a challenge. That’s why it’s a good idea to keep «faqir» in mind.
Faqirs were originally monks in the Sufi sect of Islam, who took vows of poverty. (The word came from the Arabic for «poor man.») The term is now used to refer to any Muslim or Hindu holy man. On the Scrabble board, «faqir» earns you a generous 17 points. And it’s an ideal way to use a «q» if you don’t have its usual partner, the letter «u.»
15: Jousted
Once upon a time, when knights jousted, they had great fun trying to knock each other off their horses with lances. In 2006, two journeyman Scrabble buffs jousted with each other in a game in Lexington, Massachusetts, that involved record high scores.
The loser, Wayne Yorra, opened with a bingo using the word «jousted.» He hit the double letter square with the «j» for an initial score of 23. Doubled, it was 46, plus 50 points for using all his tiles, and Yorra was off to a galloping start with a score of 96.
14: Quixotry
In that same record-setting 2006 game we mentioned previously, which took place in a church basement, winner Michael Cresta stunned Scrabble fans with the permitted word «quixotry.» It means a visionary scheme, action or thought and is derived from the fictional character Don Quixote, whose visions led him to joust with windmills.
Cresta, a carpenter by trade, stretched the word between two triple word squares. With a double letter square under the «x,» he initially scored 35. Two triples multiplies that by nine for 315. Add 50 for the bingo, and Cresta ended with a score of 365, a North American record for a single word. The two men went on to set two more records: Cresta’s final score of 830 was the most points in a game by one player. Combined with Yorra’s 490, the players set a record for most total points at 1,320.
13: Jukebox
Long before the iPod playlist, there was the coin-operated phonograph. Jukeboxes brought popular music to the world for decades and grew into colorful, bubbling neon shrines to pop and rock. The word comes from a Gullah term meaning wicked; it originally referred to a juke house, a brothel.
In Scrabble, you need to keep in mind that high-scoring words don’t have to be obscure. This common word gives you at least 27 points. As an opening bingo, it’s worth a solid 85, which is music to any player’s ears.
12: Zax
This word evolved from «sax,» a single-edge sword of ancient Scandinavia, and came to describe a tool for cutting and punching nail holes in roofing slates. It also refers to the craftsman who uses the tool. It gives the highest possible Scrabble score for a three-letter word: 19. Hit a double or triple letter square, and you’ll do even better. The bonus: You dump two problematic letters at once.
11: Queue
George Washington had one. So does your printer. «Queue» can refer to either a braid of hair hanging down a person’s back, or a line of people, print jobs or anything else. It comes from the Latin word cauda, which means tail.
In Scrabble, «queue» earns a minimum score of 14, nothing to sneer at. Even better, it clears your rack of a bunch of awkward vowels. And, of course, you lose the «q,» a letter you don’t want to be saddled with at the game’s end.
10: Chutzpah
The writer Leo Rosten said chutzpah was when a man murders his parents, then throws himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan. The word reaches us from Hebrew through Yiddish. It can mean either extreme self-confidence or shameless impudence.
You’ll score at least 27 points with chutzpah anywhere on the board. Fit it into either the upper right or lower right corner going across, and you’ll do better, much better. That puts the «z» on the double letter square, giving you an initial 37. It also lets you hit two triple word squares, which multiplies your score by nine. Add 50 for a bingo. You’ll wind up with a phenomenal 383 points and a major boost to your self-confidence.
9: Xi
Xi is the 14th letter of the Greek alphabet, falling between nu and omicron. In English, it’s pronounced something like «sigh.»
You may let out a sigh of relief when you make this play in Scrabble, because it clears your rack of the «x,» which will subtract eight points from your score if you’re stuck with it in the final tally. So keep «xi» in mind. It’s rare that you can’t find a place to squeeze this little word in, dispose of the «x» and pick up nine points in the process.
8: Syzygy
There’s no way to pronounce this word, which describes an alignment of three heavenly bodies, without sounding like you’ve had too much to drink. But it’s a cool and impressive word to keep in mind for Scrabble.
To begin with, you’ll score at least 21 points for «syzygy.» Of course, you’ll need to use a blank, because there are only two «y» tiles in Scrabble. But you can amp up your score if you bring the word into alignment with one of the corners. Hit the double letter square with the «z» and end on a triple word square, and you’ll have a total of 93. A great move when you’re short of vowels.
7: Wagyu
This Japanese breed of cattle provides gourmets with Kobe beef, which can sell for $200 a pound and up. In 2011, «wagyu» was added to the Scrabble word list for play outside the U.S. and Canada. That fact points out a great divide in the Scrabble world. In North America, the Scrabble brand is controlled by Hasbro, which rules on the words that are permissible in tournaments. In the rest of the world, Scrabble is marketed and overseen by Mattel. Different official word lists apply. For casual games, players can choose an ordinary dictionary as the last word in what words can be used.
With the combination AYWUG on your rack, you might be left scratching your head. But remember «wagyu,» and you’ll score at least 12 points initially, with a chance for more with double letter squares — if you live outside North America.
6: Yo
«Yo, my man!» This exclamation is used to get somebody’s attention. Sounds contemporary, but surprisingly, «yo» goes back to the Late Middle English of 1400. Soldiers in World War II used it to mean «present» in a roll call. Sylvester Stallone, in the Rocky movies, used it a lot, too. «Yo, Adrian!»
In Scrabble, it’s a clever way to dump a pesky «y.» It may only score you five points, but that can make a difference in a tight game.
5: Zymurgy
This is the branch of chemistry that deals with fermentation, as in winemaking or the brewing of beer. You might refer to your next kegger as an experiment in zymurgy.
It’s a high-octane word for Scrabble as well. For an opening bingo, put the «z» on the double letter square and you’ll brew up a score of 120. It can be a terrific way to score points when you’re short on vowels.
4: Bezique
Bezique was Winston Churchill’s favorite card game. It’s a high-scoring, trick-taking and melding contest that employs a deck of 64 cards. Its more popular offspring is pinochle.
In Scrabble, the word bezique can be a winner. You’ll score a minimum of 27 points when you play it anywhere on the board. But use it as an opening bingo with the «q» on a double letter square and you’ll score 124, one of the highest possible openings.
3: Flapjack
In America, this is another word for pancake. Cowboys washed them down with bad coffee for breakfast. But in Britain, a flapjack is a chewy sweet made from oats.
You might overlook flapjack as a mundane word, but it can be a high Scrabble scorer. Hit a double letter square with the «j» and you’ll score 34. Stretch it between two triple word squares and you’ll end up with a sweet 356.
2: Qanat
A qanat is a tunnel used in arid regions for irrigation. It was invented in Iran, then called Persia, about 2,500 years ago and is still used today. It taps into underground water and uses the slope of the land to bring that water to where it’s needed without pumping.
A rack containing these letters can be maddening. Two «a’s» and no «u» to go with the «q.» But don’t despair. Qanat clears most of your letters and rids you of «q,» scoring you at least 14 points in the process.
1: Aa
Solidified lava comes in two forms. Aa is rough like cinders. Pahoehoe, formed from hotter lava, is smooth. Both words are Hawaiian.
The game is winding down. This could be your last play. You can fit the word in almost anywhere there’s another «a.» It’s only worth two points, but if they allow you to edge out your opponent, you’ll be bragging about those two points for a while.
Originally Published: Feb 22, 2012
Lots More Information
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Sources
- Bialik, Carl. «Price Drop: Stocks, Homes, Now Triple-Word Scores.» Wall Street Journal. March 18, 2009. (April 7, 2022) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123731266862258869.html
- Burkeman, Oliver.»Spell bound.» The Guardian. June 27, 2008. (April 7, 2022) http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/jun/28/healthandwellbeing.familyandrelationships
- Donahue, Daniel. «Important Scrabble News: Two New Q (Without U) Words.» Wired. May 9, 2011. (April 7, 2022) http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/05/important-scrabble-news-two-new-q-without-u-words/
- McSmith, Andy. «The sublime joy of Scrabble.» The Independent. Dec. 15, 2008. (April 7, 2022) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-sublime-joy-of-scrabble-1067061.html
- Fatsis, Stefan. «How a Massachusetts carpenter got the highest Scrabble score ever.» Slate.com, Oct. 26, 2006. (April 7, 2022) http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/gaming/2006/10/830.single.html
- Fatsis, Stefan. «Present at the Creation: Scrabble.» Morning Edition, NPR.org. Aug. 19, 2002. (April 7, 2022) https://www.npr.org/2002/08/19/1148572/scrabble
- National Scrabble Association. «History of Scrabble.» (April 7, 2022) https://web.archive.org/web/20120202111144/http://www.scrabble-assoc.com/info/history.html
- Swenson, Christopher. «Best Words in Scrabble.» The Science of Board Games. (Feb. 9, 2012) http://www.scienceofboardgames.com/2007/12/best-words-in-scrabble/
- The Telegraph. «Scrabble: 60 facts for its 60th birthday.» telegraph.co.uk. December 15, 2008. (Feb. 9, 2012) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3776732/Scrabble-60-facts-for-its-60th-birthday.html