Hidden inside maybe sit beamy, embay, and maybe, five-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 12 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 31 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
beamy, embay, and maybe tie for the highest Scrabble score from maybe at 12 points. The top 10 of 31 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 3 five-letter words hiding in maybe: two come from rearranging its letters, and maybe itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. If a familiar word is all you need, start with maybe. For points, the strongest plays are beamy, embay, and maybe — each worth 12 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Rearranging the letters in maybe produces 4 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with beam. For points, the strongest play is abye — worth 9 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling maybe turns up 11 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with aye, bam, bay, bye, and may. For points, the strongest plays are aby, bay, bey, bye, may, and yam — each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 13 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in maybe. If a familiar word is all you need, start with am, ay, be, by, me, and my. For points, the strongest plays are by and my — each worth 7 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 maybe 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.
maybe 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 maybe. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 12 points on a Scrabble board:
maybe is one of three five-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing maybe unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are beamy, embay, and maybe, worth 12 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from maybe 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 maybe produce 31 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 3 five-letter words, 4 four-letter words, 11 three-letter words and 13 two-letter words.