deterrent needs no unscrambling at all — the nine-letter word is already the strongest play its own letters allow, banking 10 points in Scrabble as it stands. In all, 84 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
deterrent is the highest-scoring word from deterrent, worth 10 points in Scrabble. The top 10 of 84 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
Only one nine-letter word uses the letters in deterrent — and it is deterrent itself. No unscrambling is needed: the word is already playable as written, worth 10 points in Scrabble.
There are 3 eight-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in deterrent. No common everyday answer stands out among these eight-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are rerented, tenderer, and tentered, each worth 9 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in deterrent produces 6 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with entered. For points, the strongest plays are detente and entered — each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling deterrent turns up 19 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with rented. For points, 8 words tie at 7 points, including rented, detent and needer.
There are 10 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in deterrent. If a familiar word is all you need, start with enter. For points, 5 words tie at 6 points, including deter, ender and erred.
Rearranging the letters in deterrent produces 22 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with deer, need and nerd. For points, 13 words tie at 5 points, including deer, need and nerd.
Unscrambling deterrent turns up 15 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with end, net, red, and ten. For points, 5 words tie at 4 points, including end, red and dee.
There are 8 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in deterrent. 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.
1 ten-letter word can be made using all the letters in deterrent plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in deterrent and you get a different nine-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 8 of the 9 letters, not all of them.
deterrent 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 two senses for deterrent. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 10 points on a Scrabble board:
deterrent is the only nine-letter word the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing deterrent unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring play from these letters is deterrent, worth 10 points in Scrabble, and no other word from deterrent 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 deterrent produce 84 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 1 nine-letter word, 3 eight-letter words, 6 seven-letter words, 19 six-letter words, 10 five-letter words, 22 four-letter words, 15 three-letter words and 8 two-letter words.