retentive needs no unscrambling at all — the nine-letter word is already the strongest play its own letters allow, banking 12 points in Scrabble as it stands. In all, 116 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
retentive is the highest-scoring word from retentive, worth 12 points in Scrabble. The top 10 of 116 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
Only one nine-letter word uses the letters in retentive — and it is retentive itself. No unscrambling is needed: the word is already playable as written, worth 12 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in retentive produces 4 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with teenier. For points, the strongest play is eventer — worth 10 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling retentive turns up 25 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with entire and evener. For points, 11 words tie at 9 points, including evener, envier and invert.
There are 27 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in retentive. If a familiar word is all you need, start with enter, event, nerve, and never. For points, 11 words tie at 8 points, including event, nerve and never.
Rearranging the letters in retentive produces 28 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with even, ever and rent. For points, 11 words tie at 7 points, including even, ever and vein.
Unscrambling retentive turns up 22 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with eve, net and ten. For points, 6 words tie at 6 points, including eve, vet and rev.
1 ten-letter word can be made using all the letters in retentive plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in retentive 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.
retentive 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 three senses for retentive. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 12 points on a Scrabble board:
retentive is the only nine-letter word the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing retentive unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring play from these letters is retentive, worth 12 points in Scrabble, and no other word from retentive 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 retentive produce 116 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 1 nine-letter word, 4 seven-letter words, 25 six-letter words, 27 five-letter words, 28 four-letter words, 22 three-letter words and 9 two-letter words.