Hidden inside deputies sit deputies and deputise, eight-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 11 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 170 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
deputies and deputise tie for the highest Scrabble score from deputies at 11 points. The top 10 of 170 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 eight-letter words hiding in deputies: one comes from rearranging its letters, and deputies itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. No common everyday answer stands out among these eight-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are deputies and deputise, each worth 11 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in deputies produces 3 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with despite. For points, the strongest plays are deputes, despite, and dispute — each worth 10 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling deputies turns up 10 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with duties, stupid, suited, and upside. For points, 7 words tie at 9 points, including stupid, upside and depute.
There are 35 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in deputies. If a familiar word is all you need, start with diets, edits and setup. For points, 10 words tie at 8 points, including speed, spied and deeps.
Rearranging the letters in deputies produces 60 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with deep, dies and diet. For points, 13 words tie at 7 points, including deep, dips and peed.
Unscrambling deputies turns up 45 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with die, dip and due. For points, 5 words tie at 6 points, including dip, dep and dup.
There are 15 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in deputies. If a familiar word is all you need, start with id, is and it. For points, the strongest plays are pe, pi, and up — each worth 4 points in Scrabble.
5 nine-letter words can be made using all the letters in deputies plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in deputies 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.
deputies 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 four senses for deputies. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 11 points on a Scrabble board:
deputies is one of two eight-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing deputies unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are deputies and deputise, worth 11 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from deputies 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 deputies produce 170 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 eight-letter words, 3 seven-letter words, 10 six-letter words, 35 five-letter words, 60 four-letter words, 45 three-letter words and 15 two-letter words.