Hidden inside nastiest sit antsiest, instates, nastiest and 2 others, eight-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 8 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 218 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
antsiest, instates, nastiest and 5 others tie for the highest Scrabble score from nastiest at 8 points. The top 10 of 218 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 5 eight-letter words hiding in nastiest: four come from rearranging its letters, and nastiest itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. If a familiar word is all you need, start with nastiest. For points, 5 words tie at 8 points, including nastiest, antsiest and instates.
Rearranging the letters in nastiest produces 10 valid seven-letter words. No common everyday answer stands out among these seven-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are entasis, instate, nasties and 7 more, each worth 7 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling nastiest turns up 28 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with saints, sanest and stains. For points, 28 words tie at 6 points, including saints, sanest and stains.
There are 56 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in nastiest. If a familiar word is all you need, start with nests, saint and seats. For points, 56 words tie at 5 points, including nests, saint and seats.
Rearranging the letters in nastiest produces 60 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ants, east and eats. For points, 60 words tie at 4 points, including ants, east and eats.
Unscrambling nastiest turns up 42 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ant, ass and ate. For points, 42 words tie at 3 points, including ant, ass and ate.
There are 17 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in nastiest. If a familiar word is all you need, start with an, as and at. For points, 17 words tie at 2 points, including an, as and at.
20 nine-letter words can be made using all the letters in nastiest plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in nastiest and you get a different eight-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 7 of the 8 letters, not all of them.
nastiest is in the NWL, the official Scrabble word list for North America, and in the Words With Friends dictionary, so it's playable exactly as it stands and needs no unscrambling.
The 1-point gap between the two totals comes from the tile values themselves: Scrabble and Words With Friends price the same letters differently.
nastiest is one of five eight-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing nastiest unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are antsiest, instates, nastiest, satinets, and titaness, worth 8 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from nastiest earns more points in Scrabble. Words With Friends prices the same letters differently, so the top of the list changes on a Words With Friends board. Both scores count tile values only and exclude premium squares.
The letters in nastiest produce 218 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 5 eight-letter words, 10 seven-letter words, 28 six-letter words, 56 five-letter words, 60 four-letter words, 42 three-letter words and 17 two-letter words.