but and tub tie for the highest Scrabble score from but at 5 points. The top 3 of 3 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 three-letter words hiding in but: one comes from rearranging its letters, and but itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. Here the everyday answers and the top-scoring plays are one and the same: but and tub, worth 5 points apiece in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
Unscrambling but produces exactly one two-letter word: ut. It is not one of the common answers — a genuine unscrambler find — and it banks 2 points in Scrabble.
Swap a single tile in but and you get a different three-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 2 of the 3 letters, not all of them.
but 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 2-point gap between the two totals comes from the tile values themselves: Scrabble and Words With Friends price the same letters differently.
Dictionaries record one sense for but. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 5 points on a Scrabble board:
but is one of two three-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing but unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are but and tub, worth 5 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from but 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 but produce 3 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 three-letter words and 1 two-letter word.