Hidden inside courteous sit courteous and outsource, nine-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 11 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 231 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
courteous and outsource tie for the highest Scrabble score from courteous at 11 points. The top 10 of 231 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 nine-letter words hiding in courteous: one comes from rearranging its letters, and courteous itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. No common everyday answer stands out among these nine-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are courteous and outsource, each worth 11 points in Scrabble.
There are 4 eight-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in courteous. No common everyday answer stands out among these eight-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are coutures, ecotours, outcurse, and outscore, each worth 10 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in courteous produces 7 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with scooter. For points, 7 words tie at 9 points, including scooter, cooters and couters.
Unscrambling courteous turns up 33 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with course, courts and routes. For points, 23 words tie at 8 points, including course, courts and sector.
There are 58 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in courteous. If a familiar word is all you need, start with cores, court and cures. For points, 33 words tie at 7 points, including cores, court and cures.
Rearranging the letters in courteous produces 70 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with core, cost and cues. For points, 28 words tie at 6 points, including core, cost and cues.
Unscrambling courteous turns up 45 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with cue, cut and our. For points, 16 words tie at 5 points, including cue, cut and coo.
There are 12 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in courteous. If a familiar word is all you need, start with or, so, to, and us. For points, 12 words tie at 2 points, including or, so and to.
4 ten-letter words can be made using all the letters in courteous plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in courteous and you get a different nine-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 8 of the 9 letters, not all of them.
courteous 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 3-point gap between the two totals comes from the tile values themselves: Scrabble and Words With Friends price the same letters differently.
Dictionaries record two senses for courteous. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 11 points on a Scrabble board:
courteous is one of two nine-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing courteous unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are courteous and outsource, worth 11 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from courteous 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 courteous produce 231 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 nine-letter words, 4 eight-letter words, 7 seven-letter words, 33 six-letter words, 58 five-letter words, 70 four-letter words, 45 three-letter words and 12 two-letter words.