Hidden inside phrases sit phasers, phrases, seraphs and 2 others, seven-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 12 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 160 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
Unscramble SPHAERS, SPHARSE or SHEARPS and you get the same 7 letters as PHRASES: so the words from PHRASES listed below are the words from those scrambles too.
phasers, phrases, seraphs and 5 others tie for the highest Scrabble score from phrases at 12 points. The top 10 of 160 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 5 seven-letter words hiding in phrases: four come from rearranging its letters, and phrases itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. If a familiar word is all you need, start with phrases. For points, 5 words tie at 12 points, including phrases, phasers and seraphs.
Unscrambling phrases turns up 21 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with phases, phrase and rashes. For points, 10 words tie at 11 points, including phases, phrase and shapes.
There are 37 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in phrases. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ashes, hears and phase. For points, 8 words tie at 10 points, including phase, shape and sharp.
Rearranging the letters in phrases produces 48 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with apes, ears and eras. For points, 8 words tie at 9 points, including epha, haps and harp.
Unscrambling phrases turns up 36 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ape, are and ash. For points, the strongest plays are hap, hep, pah, and peh — each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
There are 13 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in phrases. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ah, as and eh. For points, 5 words tie at 5 points, including ah, eh and ha.
9 eight-letter words can be made using all the letters in phrases plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in phrases and you get a different seven-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 6 of the 7 letters, not all of them.
phrases 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.
Both totals match, because every tile in phrases carries the same value on a Scrabble board and on a Words With Friends board.
Dictionaries record six senses for phrases. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 12 points on a Scrabble board:
phrases is one of five seven-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing phrases unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are phasers, phrases, seraphs, shapers, and sherpas, worth 12 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from phrases 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 phrases produce 160 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 5 seven-letter words, 21 six-letter words, 37 five-letter words, 48 four-letter words, 36 three-letter words and 13 two-letter words.