Hidden inside paternal sit parental, parlante, paternal and 1 other, eight-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 10 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 227 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
parental, parlante, paternal and 6 others tie for the highest Scrabble score from paternal at 10 points. The top 10 of 227 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 4 eight-letter words hiding in paternal: three come from rearranging its letters, and paternal itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. No common everyday answer stands out among these eight-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are parental, parlante, paternal, and prenatal, 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 paternal produces 7 valid seven-letter words. No common everyday answer stands out among these seven-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are apteral, planate, plantar, planter, platane, preanal, and replant, 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 paternal turns up 25 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with parent and planet. For points, the strongest plays are apneal, arpent, earlap, enrapt, entrap, palate, palter, parent, partan, planar, planer, planet, platan, platen, plater, replan, tarpan, trapan, and trepan — 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 57 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in paternal. If a familiar word is all you need, start with alert, altar, alter, apart, later, leapt, and learn. For points, the strongest plays are apart, apnea, apter, arepa, arpen, leapt, lepta, paean, palea, paler, palet, panel, parae, paren, parle, paten, pater, pearl, peart, penal, petal, plane, plant, plate, pleat, plena, prana, prate, taper, and tepal — 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 paternal produces 70 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with area, earn, lane, late, lean, leap, and lent. For points, the strongest plays are aper, atap, larp, leap, lept, napa, nape, neap, paan, pale, pane, pant, para, pare, part, pate, peal, pean, pear, peat, pelt, pent, pert, plan, plat, plea, prat, rape, rapt, reap, tapa, tape, tarp, tepa, and trap — 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 paternal turns up 46 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ant, ape, are, art, ate, ear, and eat. For points, the strongest plays are alp, ape, apt, lap, nap, pal, pan, par, pat, pea, pen, per, pet, rap, rep, and tap — 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 18 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in paternal. If a familiar word is all you need, start with an and at. For points, the strongest plays are pa and pe — each worth 4 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 paternal and you get a different eight-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 7 of the 8 letters, not all of them.
paternal 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 paternal. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 10 points on a Scrabble board:
paternal is one of four eight-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing paternal unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are parental, parlante, paternal, and prenatal, worth 10 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from paternal 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 paternal produce 227 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 4 eight-letter words, 7 seven-letter words, 25 six-letter words, 57 five-letter words, 70 four-letter words, 46 three-letter words and 18 two-letter words.