Hidden inside penalties sit antisleep, penalties, and tapelines, nine-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 11 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 631 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
antisleep, penalties, and tapelines tie for the highest Scrabble score from penalties at 11 points. The top 10 of 631 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 3 nine-letter words hiding in penalties: two come from rearranging its letters, and penalties itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. If a familiar word is all you need, start with penalties. For points, the strongest plays are antisleep, penalties, and tapelines — each worth 11 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 10 eight-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in penalties. If a familiar word is all you need, start with plainest and plenties. For points, the strongest plays are epilates, panelist, pantiles, penalise, penlites, petaline, plainest, plenties, sepaline, and tapeline — each worth 10 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Rearranging the letters in penalties produces 44 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with panties and planets. For points, the strongest plays are alpines, aplites, elapine, epilate, epistle, leptins, nepetas, paliest, panties, pantile, patines, pelites, penates, penlite, pensile, pileate, pineals, pintles, plaints, planets, platens, platies, plenist, sapient, spaniel, spelean, spinate, splenia, and talipes — each 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 penalties turns up 102 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with aliens, asleep, listen, paints, planes, planet, and plants. For points, the strongest plays are alpine, aplite, asleep, elapse, espial, etapes, instep, lapins, leptin, lipase, nepeta, paints, palest, palets, panels, pantie, pastel, pastie, pastil, patens, patine, patins, peasen, pelite, penial, penile, pensil, peseta, pestle, petals, petsai, pietas, pineal, pineta, pintas, pintle, plains, plaint, plaits, planes, planet, plants, platen, plates, please, pleats, pliant, ptisan, sapele, septal, spinal, spinel, spinet, spital, spleen, splent, spline, splint, staple, stipel, and tepals — 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 182 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in penalties. If a familiar word is all you need, start with saint, sleep, slept, spelt, spent, spilt, and spine. For points, the strongest plays are salep, sepal, sepia, septa, sleep, slept, slipe, slipt, sneap, snipe, spail, spait, spale, spate, spean, speel, speil, spelt, spent, spiel, spile, spilt, spine, spite, splat, split, steep, stipe, tapes, tapis, tepal, tepas, aspen, etape, inapt, inept, lapin, lapis, lapse, leaps, leapt, lepta, lipas, napes, neaps, neeps, nipas, pails, pains, paint, paise, pales, palet, palis, panel, panes, pants, paste, paten, pates, patin, peals, peans, pease, peats, peels, peens, peins, peise, peles, pelts, penal, penes, penis, petal, pians, pieta, pilea, piles, pinas, pines, pinta, pints, piste, pitas, plain, plait, plane, plans, plant, plate, plats, pleas, pleat, plena, and plies — each worth 7 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Rearranging the letters in penalties produces 178 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ants, apes, lane, laps, last, late, and lean. For points, the strongest plays are alps, apes, apse, laps, leap, lept, lipa, lipe, lips, lisp, nape, naps, neap, neep, nipa, nips, pail, pain, pale, pali, pals, pane, pans, pant, pase, past, pate, pats, peal, pean, peas, peat, peel, peen, pees, pein, pele, pelt, pens, pent, pest, pets, pial, pian, pias, pies, pile, pina, pine, pins, pint, pita, pits, plan, plat, plea, plie, salp, seep, sept, sipe, slap, slip, snap, snip, spae, span, spat, spin, spit, step, tape, taps, tepa, and tips — each worth 6 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling penalties turns up 88 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ant, ape, ate, eat, its, lap, and let. For points, the strongest plays are alp, ape, apt, asp, lap, lip, nap, nip, pal, pan, pas, pat, pea, pee, pen, pes, pet, pia, pie, pin, pis, pit, psi, pst, sap, sip, spa, tap, and tip — each worth 5 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 24 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in penalties. If a familiar word is all you need, start with an, as, at, in, is, and it. For points, the strongest plays are pa, pe, and pi — each worth 4 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
4 ten-letter words can be made using all the letters in penalties plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in penalties and you get a different nine-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 8 of the 9 letters, not all of them.
penalties 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 four senses for penalties. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 11 points on a Scrabble board:
penalties is one of three nine-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing penalties unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are antisleep, penalties, and tapelines, worth 11 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from penalties 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 penalties produce 631 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 3 nine-letter words, 10 eight-letter words, 44 seven-letter words, 102 six-letter words, 182 five-letter words, 178 four-letter words, 88 three-letter words and 24 two-letter words.