Hidden inside nilgai sit ailing and nilgai, six-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 7 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 36 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
ailing and nilgai tie for the highest Scrabble score from nilgai at 7 points. The top 10 of 36 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 six-letter words hiding in nilgai: one comes from rearranging its letters, and nilgai itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. No common everyday answer stands out among these six-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are ailing and nilgai, 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 5 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in nilgai. No common everyday answer stands out among these five-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are algin, align, liang, ligan, and linga, each worth 6 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Rearranging the letters in nilgai produces 10 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with gain and nail. For points, the strongest plays are agin, gain, glia, lang, and ling — each worth 5 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling nilgai turns up 10 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with gal and nag. For points, the strongest plays are gal, gan, gin, lag, and nag — each worth 4 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 nilgai. If a familiar word is all you need, start with an and in. For points, the strongest plays are ag and gi — each worth 3 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 nilgai and you get a different six-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 5 of the 6 letters, not all of them.
nilgai 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 one sense for nilgai. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 7 points on a Scrabble board:
nilgai is one of two six-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing nilgai unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are ailing and nilgai, worth 7 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from nilgai 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 nilgai produce 36 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 six-letter words, 5 five-letter words, 10 four-letter words, 10 three-letter words and 9 two-letter words.