quay needs no unscrambling at all — the four-letter word is already the strongest play its own letters allow, banking 16 points in Scrabble as it stands. In all, 4 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
quay is the highest-scoring word from quay, worth 16 points in Scrabble. The top 4 of 4 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
Only one four-letter word uses the letters in quay — and it is quay itself. No unscrambling is needed: the word is already playable as written, worth 16 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling quay produces exactly one three-letter word: qua. It is not one of the common answers — a genuine unscrambler find — and it banks 12 points in Scrabble.
Swap a single tile in quay and you get a different four-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 3 of the 4 letters, not all of them.
quay 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 quay carries the same value on a Scrabble board and on a Words With Friends board.
Dictionaries record one sense for quay. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 16 points on a Scrabble board:
quay is the only four-letter word the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing quay unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring play from these letters is quay, worth 16 points in Scrabble, and no other word from quay 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 quay produce 4 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 1 four-letter word, 1 three-letter word and 2 two-letter words.