Hidden inside retain sit ratine, retain, and retina, six-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 6 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 93 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
ratine, retain, and retina tie for the highest Scrabble score from retain at 6 points. The top 10 of 93 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 3 six-letter words hiding in retain: two come from rearranging its letters, and retain itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. No common everyday answer stands out among these six-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are ratine, retain, and retina, each worth 6 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 14 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in retain. If a familiar word is all you need, start with train. For points, the strongest plays are antre, entia, inert, inter, irate, niter, nitre, retia, riant, tenia, terai, tinea, train, and trine — each worth 5 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Rearranging the letters in retain produces 28 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with earn, near, neat, rain, rate, rent, and tear. For points, the strongest plays are airn, airt, ante, anti, arie, earn, etna, nare, near, neat, nite, rain, rani, rant, rate, rein, rent, rite, tain, tare, tarn, tear, tein, tern, tian, tier, tine, and tire — each worth 4 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling retain turns up 32 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with air, ant, are, art, ate, ear, and eat. For points, the strongest plays are ain, air, ait, ane, ani, ant, are, art, ate, ear, eat, era, ern, eta, ire, nae, net, nit, rai, ran, rat, rei, ret, ria, rin, tae, tan, tar, tea, ten, tie, and tin — each worth 3 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 16 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in retain. If a familiar word is all you need, start with an, at, in, and it. For points, the strongest plays are ae, ai, an, ar, at, en, er, et, in, it, na, ne, re, ta, te, and ti — each worth 2 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
56 seven-letter words can be made using all the letters in retain plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in retain and you get a different six-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 5 of the 6 letters, not all of them.
retain 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 1-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 retain. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 6 points on a Scrabble board:
retain is one of three six-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing retain unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are ratine, retain, and retina, worth 6 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from retain 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 retain produce 93 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 3 six-letter words, 14 five-letter words, 28 four-letter words, 32 three-letter words and 16 two-letter words.