detect needs no unscrambling at all — the six-letter word is already the strongest play its own letters allow, banking 9 points in Scrabble as it stands. In all, 15 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
detect is the highest-scoring word from detect, worth 9 points in Scrabble. The top 10 of 15 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
Only one six-letter word uses the letters in detect — and it is detect itself. No unscrambling is needed: the word is already playable as written, worth 9 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in detect produces 4 valid four-letter words. No common everyday answer stands out among these four-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring word is cede, worth 7 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling detect turns up 6 three-letter words. No common everyday answer stands out among these three-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are cee and tec, each worth 5 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 4 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in detect. No common everyday answer stands out among these two-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are de and ed, each worth 3 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 detect and you get a different six-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 5 of the 6 letters, not all of them.
detect 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.
Dictionaries record one sense for detect. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 9 points on a Scrabble board:
detect is the only six-letter word the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing detect unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring play from these letters is detect, worth 9 points in Scrabble, and no other word from detect 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 detect produce 15 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 1 six-letter word, 4 four-letter words, 6 three-letter words and 4 two-letter words.