SCRABBLE WORDS
According to Craig Rowland, Scrabble in North America recognizes five words which, if spelled over two triple-word score squares, and with a premium-scoring tile on the double-letter score square, will award the player 392 points on a single play. These five words are:
OXAZEPAM, BEZIQUES, CAZIQUES, MEZQUITS, and
MEZQUITE.
According to Tony Kalayzich,
QUIZZIFY beats the above words, scoring 410. He reports this word is in
Official Scrabble Words, based on Chambers.
John Chew says that
OXYPHENBUTAZONE is the highest-scoring word known under American tournament Scrabble rules (OSPD+MWCD). It can score 1778 under suitably contrived circumstances listed and credited in the Scrabble FAQ. The highest-scoring opening plays are
MUZJIKS (128) in OSPD and
QUARTZY (126) or
SQUEEZY (126) in OSW.
Bruce D. Wilner says if we include eight-letter "bingos" that use all seven letters on one's rack plus a letter already on the board, then
WHIZBANG, QUETZALS, and
HIGHJACK score an incredible 374 points for a single play if the highest-point tile is on a light blue square and both the first and last letters are on red squares.
QUIXOTIC and
MUSQUASH are right behind, scoring 356 and
338, respectively.
According to James Bartlett, the highest scoring word is
QUARTZY, which will score 164 points if played across a red triple-word square with the Z on a light blue double-letter square. It will score 162 points if played across two pink double-word squares with the Q and the Y on those squares.
BEZIQUE and
CAZIQUE are next with a possible 161 points. All three words score an extra 50 points for having seven letters and therefore emptying the letter rack in one go.
Other words yielding high scores are
ZYXOMMA (which is not in OSPD) and
POPQUIZ.
QI (a life force in Chinese medicine) appears in
Chambers. Barry Harridge says, "Its introduction threw the Scrabble world into a tailspin, with some players arguing that the Q should no longer be worth 10 points." Bruce D. Wilner says, "Not only do they allow QI in the U.K., they also allow
ZO (a type of hornless cattle). This makes playing U. K. Scrabble much less of a strategic challenge than U. S. Scrabble, which features a host of "blocking tiles," i.e., tiles that cannot form 2-letter words and effectively block off opportunities for your opponent.
ETAERIO (an aggregate or cluster fruit such as the raspberry) is the most likely seven letter word to appear on a Scrabble rack.
The Q without U words accepted in the U. S. Scrabble list are:
QAT, QAID, QOPH, FAQIR, QANAT, TRANQ, QINDAR, QINTAR, QWERTY, SHEQEL, QINDARKA, and
SHEQALIM (alternate plural of SHEQEL). The combined US/UK list (SOWPODS) adds (from Chambers Dictionary), with their plurals:
BUQSHA, BURQA, INQILAB, MBAQANGA, MUQADDAM, QABALAH, QADI, QAIMAQAM, QALAMDAN, QASIDA, QI, QIBLA, QIGONG, QINGHAOSU, QIS, QIVIUT, QWERTIES, QWERTYS, SUQ, TALAQ, TRANQ, TSADDIQIM, TSADDIQ, TZADDIQIM, TZADDIQ, UMIAQ, WAQF, and
YAQONA.
Some words containing Q and U but not the QU sequence are
QIVIUT, UMIAQ, and
BUQSHA.
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