Hidden inside hows sit hows and show, four-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 10 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 17 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
hows and show tie for the highest Scrabble score from hows at 10 points. The top 10 of 17 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 four-letter words hiding in hows: one comes from rearranging its letters, and hows itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. If a familiar word is all you need, start with show. For points, the strongest plays are hows and show — each worth 10 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling hows turns up 8 three-letter words. Here the everyday answers and the top-scoring plays are one and the same: how and who, worth 9 points apiece in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 7 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in hows. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ho, oh, ow, sh, and so. For points, the strongest plays are ho, oh, ow, sh, and wo — each worth 5 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 hows and you get a different four-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 3 of the 4 letters, not all of them.
hows 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.
hows is one of two four-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing hows unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are hows and show, worth 10 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from hows 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 hows produce 17 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 four-letter words, 8 three-letter words and 7 two-letter words.