Hidden inside detonative sit denotative and detonative, ten-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 14 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 293 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
denotative and detonative tie for the highest Scrabble score from detonative at 14 points. The top 10 of 293 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 ten-letter words hiding in detonative: one comes from rearranging its letters, and detonative itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. No common everyday answer stands out among these ten-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are denotative and detonative, each worth 14 points in Scrabble.
There are 6 eight-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in detonative. No common everyday answer stands out among these eight-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are denotive, donative, and vendetta, each worth 12 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in detonative produces 13 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 deviant, deviate, evident and 3 more, each worth 11 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling detonative turns up 37 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with attend, devote and donate. For points, 14 words tie at 10 points, including devote, invade and advent.
There are 56 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in detonative. If a familiar word is all you need, start with avoid, eaten and event. For points, 15 words tie at 9 points, including avoid, video and voted.
Rearranging the letters in detonative produces 87 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with date, diet and dine. For points, 10 words tie at 8 points, including dive, dove and avid.
Unscrambling detonative turns up 67 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with aid, and and ant. For points, the strongest plays are dev and vid — each worth 7 points in Scrabble.
There are 25 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in detonative. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ad, an and at. For points, 7 words tie at 3 points, including ad, do and id.
detonative 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 one sense for detonative. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 14 points on a Scrabble board:
detonative is one of two ten-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing detonative unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are denotative and detonative, worth 14 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from detonative 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 detonative produce 293 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 ten-letter words, 6 eight-letter words, 13 seven-letter words, 37 six-letter words, 56 five-letter words, 87 four-letter words, 67 three-letter words and 25 two-letter words.