def and fed tie for the highest Scrabble score from def at 7 points. The top 6 of 6 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 three-letter words hiding in def: one comes from rearranging its letters, and def itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. If a familiar word is all you need, start with fed. For points, the strongest plays are def and fed — each worth 7 points in Scrabble.
There are 4 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in def. No common everyday answer stands out among these two-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are ef and fe, each worth 5 points in Scrabble.
Swap a single tile in def 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.
def 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.
Both totals match, because every tile in def carries the same value on a Scrabble board and on a Words With Friends board.
def is one of two three-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing def unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are def and fed, worth 7 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from def 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 def produce 6 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 three-letter words and 4 two-letter words.