Hidden inside percolate sit percolate and prelocate, nine-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 13 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 400 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
percolate and prelocate tie for the highest Scrabble score from percolate at 13 points. The top 10 of 400 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 nine-letter words hiding in percolate: one comes from rearranging its letters, and percolate itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. No common everyday answer stands out among these nine-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are percolate and prelocate, each worth 13 points in Scrabble.
There are 4 eight-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in percolate. No common everyday answer stands out among these eight-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are pectoral and praelect, each worth 12 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in percolate produces 20 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with operate and replace. For points, 7 words tie at 11 points, including replace, caltrop and capelet.
Unscrambling percolate turns up 54 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with carpet, cereal and create. For points, 13 words tie at 10 points, including carpet, caplet and capote.
There are 93 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in percolate. If a familiar word is all you need, start with actor, alert and alter. For points, 18 words tie at 9 points, including peace, place and caper.
Rearranging the letters in percolate produces 123 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with cape, care and cart. For points, 12 words tie at 8 points, including cape, clap and crap.
Unscrambling percolate turns up 85 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with act, ape and are. For points, 5 words tie at 7 points, including cap, cop and cep.
There are 19 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in percolate. If a familiar word is all you need, start with at, or, and to. For points, the strongest plays are op, pa, pe, and po — each worth 4 points in Scrabble.
6 ten-letter words can be made using all the letters in percolate plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in percolate 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.
percolate 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 seven senses for percolate. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 13 points on a Scrabble board:
percolate is one of two nine-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing percolate unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are percolate and prelocate, worth 13 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from percolate 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 percolate produce 400 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 nine-letter words, 4 eight-letter words, 20 seven-letter words, 54 six-letter words, 93 five-letter words, 123 four-letter words, 85 three-letter words and 19 two-letter words.