detained needs no unscrambling at all — the eight-letter word is already the strongest play its own letters allow, banking 10 points in Scrabble as it stands. In all, 122 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
detained is the highest-scoring word from detained, worth 10 points in Scrabble. The top 10 of 122 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
Only one eight-letter word uses the letters in detained — and it is detained itself. No unscrambling is needed: the word is already playable as written, worth 10 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in detained produces 3 valid seven-letter words. No common everyday answer stands out among these seven-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are endited, ideated, and nidated, each worth 9 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling detained turns up 16 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with denied, edited, indeed, and tended. For points, 9 words tie at 8 points, including denied, edited and indeed.
There are 16 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in detained. If a familiar word is all you need, start with dated, dined, eaten, and ended. For points, 6 words tie at 7 points, including dated, dined and ended.
Rearranging the letters in detained produces 35 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with date, dead and deed. For points, the strongest plays are dead, deed, and died — each worth 6 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling detained turns up 33 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with add, aid and and. For points, the strongest plays are add, dad, and did — each worth 5 points in Scrabble.
There are 18 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in detained. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ad, an and at. For points, 5 words tie at 3 points, including ad, id and da.
4 nine-letter words can be made using all the letters in detained plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in detained 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.
detained 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 1-point gap between the two totals comes from the tile values themselves: Scrabble and Words With Friends price the same letters differently.
detained is the only eight-letter word the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing detained unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring play from these letters is detained, worth 10 points in Scrabble, and no other word from detained 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 detained produce 122 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 1 eight-letter word, 3 seven-letter words, 16 six-letter words, 16 five-letter words, 35 four-letter words, 33 three-letter words and 18 two-letter words.