Hidden inside koans sit kaons and koans, five-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 9 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 30 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
kaons and koans tie for the highest Scrabble score from koans at 9 points. The top 10 of 30 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 five-letter words hiding in koans: one comes from rearranging its letters, and koans itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. No common everyday answer stands out among these five-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are kaons and koans, each worth 9 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Rearranging the letters in koans produces 8 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with sank and soak. For points, the strongest plays are kaon, koan, koas, oaks, okas, sank, and soak — each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling koans turns up 11 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ask and son. For points, the strongest plays are ask, kas, koa, kos, oak, oka, and ska — each worth 7 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 9 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in koans. If a familiar word is all you need, start with an, as, no, ok, on, and so. For points, the strongest plays are ka and ok — each worth 6 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 koans and you get a different five-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 4 of the 5 letters, not all of them.
koans 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 koans. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 9 points on a Scrabble board:
koans is one of two five-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing koans unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are kaons and koans, worth 9 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from koans 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 koans produce 30 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 five-letter words, 8 four-letter words, 11 three-letter words and 9 two-letter words.