ligature needs no unscrambling at all — the eight-letter word is already the strongest play its own letters allow, banking 9 points in Scrabble as it stands. In all, 243 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
ligature is the highest-scoring word from ligature, worth 9 points in Scrabble. The top 10 of 243 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
Only one eight-letter word uses the letters in ligature — and it is ligature itself. No unscrambling is needed: the word is already playable as written, worth 9 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling ligature turns up 23 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with guitar, ritual, and uglier. For points, 18 words tie at 7 points, including guitar, uglier and aiglet.
There are 60 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in ligature. If a familiar word is all you need, start with alert, alter and argue. For points, 33 words tie at 6 points, including argue, great and guilt.
Rearranging the letters in ligature produces 78 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with gate, girl and glue. For points, 32 words tie at 5 points, including gate, girl and glue.
Unscrambling ligature turns up 61 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with age, air and are. For points, 22 words tie at 4 points, including age, gal and get.
There are 18 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in ligature. If a familiar word is all you need, start with at and it. For points, the strongest plays are ag and gi — each worth 3 points in Scrabble.
8 nine-letter words can be made using all the letters in ligature plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in ligature and you get a different eight-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 7 of the 8 letters, not all of them.
ligature 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 3-point gap between the two totals comes from the tile values themselves: Scrabble and Words With Friends price the same letters differently.
Dictionaries record six senses for ligature. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 9 points on a Scrabble board:
ligature is the only eight-letter word the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing ligature unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring play from these letters is ligature, worth 9 points in Scrabble, and no other word from ligature 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 ligature produce 243 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 1 eight-letter word, 2 seven-letter words, 23 six-letter words, 60 five-letter words, 78 four-letter words, 61 three-letter words and 18 two-letter words.