Hidden inside obverse sit observe, obverse, and verbose, seven-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 12 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 87 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
observe, obverse, and verbose tie for the highest Scrabble score from obverse at 12 points. The top 10 of 87 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 3 seven-letter words hiding in obverse: two come from rearranging its letters, and obverse itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. If a familiar word is all you need, start with observe. For points, the strongest plays are observe, obverse, and verbose — each worth 12 points in Scrabble.
There are 19 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in obverse. If a familiar word is all you need, start with beers, robes, serve, and sober. For points, the strongest plays are bevor, breve, and verbs — each worth 10 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in obverse produces 28 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with beer, bees and bore. For points, the strongest play is verb — worth 9 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling obverse turns up 25 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with bee, eve, rob, and see. For points, 5 words tie at 6 points, including eve, rev and sev.
There are 9 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in obverse. If a familiar word is all you need, start with be, or, and so. For points, the strongest plays are be and bo — each worth 4 points in Scrabble.
5 eight-letter words can be made using all the letters in obverse plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in obverse 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.
obverse 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 2-point gap between the two totals comes from the tile values themselves: Scrabble and Words With Friends price the same letters differently.
Dictionaries record two senses for obverse. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 12 points on a Scrabble board:
obverse is one of three seven-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing obverse unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are observe, obverse, and verbose, worth 12 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from obverse 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 obverse produce 87 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 3 seven-letter words, 3 six-letter words, 19 five-letter words, 28 four-letter words, 25 three-letter words and 9 two-letter words.