defence needs no unscrambling at all — the seven-letter word is already the strongest play its own letters allow, banking 13 points in Scrabble as it stands. In all, 23 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
defence is the highest-scoring word from defence, worth 13 points in Scrabble. The top 10 of 23 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
Only one seven-letter word uses the letters in defence — and it is defence itself. No unscrambling is needed: the word is already playable as written, worth 13 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling defence produces exactly one six-letter word: fenced. It is not one of the common answers — a genuine unscrambler find — and it banks 12 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling defence produces exactly one five-letter word: fence. It is an everyday word and an easy play, worth 10 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in defence produces 5 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with feed and need. For points, the strongest plays are feed and fend — each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling defence turns up 9 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with end, fed, and fee. For points, the strongest plays are def and fed — each worth 7 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 6 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in defence. 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.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Swap a single tile in defence and you get a different seven-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 6 of the 7 letters, not all of them.
defence 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 eleven senses for defence. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 13 points on a Scrabble board:
defence is the only seven-letter word the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing defence unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring play from these letters is defence, worth 13 points in Scrabble, and no other word from defence 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 defence produce 23 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 1 seven-letter word, 1 six-letter word, 1 five-letter word, 5 four-letter words, 9 three-letter words and 6 two-letter words.