Hidden inside discerning sit discerning and rescinding, ten-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 14 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 303 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
discerning and rescinding tie for the highest Scrabble score from discerning at 14 points. The top 10 of 303 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 ten-letter words hiding in discerning: one comes from rearranging its letters, and discerning 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 discerning and rescinding, each worth 14 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling discerning turns up 2 nine-letter words. No common everyday answer stands out among these nine-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring word is cindering, worth 13 points in Scrabble.
There are 8 eight-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in discerning. No common everyday answer stands out among these eight-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring word is scending, worth 12 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in discerning produces 35 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with dinners, endings, and sending. For points, the strongest plays are cringed, deicing, and discing — each worth 11 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling discerning turns up 62 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with design, diners and dining. For points, the strongest plays are ceding and dicing — each worth 10 points in Scrabble.
There are 67 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in discerning. If a familiar word is all you need, start with cried, cries and dices. For points, 11 words tie at 8 points, including cried, dices and cedis.
Rearranging the letters in discerning produces 71 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with dice, dies and digs. For points, 6 words tie at 7 points, including dice, cedi and cigs.
Unscrambling discerning turns up 44 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with die, dig and end. For points, the strongest play is cig — worth 6 points in Scrabble.
There are 12 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in discerning. If a familiar word is all you need, start with id, in, and is. For points, the strongest plays are de, ed, gi, and id — each worth 3 points in Scrabble.
2 eleven-letter words can be made using all the letters in discerning plus one additional letter.
discerning 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 4-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 discerning. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 14 points on a Scrabble board:
discerning is one of two ten-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing discerning unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are discerning and rescinding, worth 14 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from discerning 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 discerning produce 303 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 ten-letter words, 2 nine-letter words, 8 eight-letter words, 35 seven-letter words, 62 six-letter words, 67 five-letter words, 71 four-letter words, 44 three-letter words and 12 two-letter words.