Hidden inside retained sit detainer and retained, eight-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 9 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 256 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
detainer and retained tie for the highest Scrabble score from retained at 9 points. The top 10 of 256 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 eight-letter words hiding in retained: one comes from rearranging its letters, and retained 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 detainer and retained, each worth 9 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Rearranging the letters in retained produces 6 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with trained. For points, the strongest plays are antired, detrain, and trained — each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling retained turns up 42 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with earned, entire, neater, rained, and rented. For points, the strongest plays are aedine, aeried, airted, anteed, ardent, dearie, denari, denier, derate, detain, dieter, earned, endear, endite, ideate, neared, nereid, nidate, rained, ranted, redate, rediae, reedit, reined, rented, retied, rident, teared, tender, tiered, tinder, tirade, and trined — each worth 7 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 58 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in retained. If a familiar word is all you need, start with aired, diner, drain, eaten, enter, tired, and trade. For points, the strongest plays are aider, aired, anted, dater, deair, denar, derat, deter, diene, dinar, diner, drain, eared, eider, ender, ident, irade, nadir, ranid, rated, redan, redia, tared, teind, tined, tired, trade, tread, treed, trend, triad, and tried — each worth 6 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Rearranging the letters in retained produces 77 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with dare, date, dear, deer, diet, dine, and dirt. For points, the strongest plays are adit, aide, arid, dare, darn, dart, date, dean, dear, deer, deet, dene, deni, dent, dere, diet, dine, dint, dire, dirt, dita, dite, drat, dree, edit, eide, idea, ired, nard, need, nerd, nide, raid, rand, read, rede, reed, rend, ride, rind, teed, tend, tide, tied, and trad — each worth 5 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling retained turns up 50 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with aid, air, and, ant, are, art, and ate. For points, the strongest plays are aid, and, dan, dee, den, die, din, dit, end, rad, red, rid, tad, and ted — each worth 4 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 21 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in retained. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ad, an, at, id, in, and it. For points, the strongest plays are ad, da, de, ed, and id — each worth 3 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
19 nine-letter words can be made using all the letters in retained plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in retained 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.
retained 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 one sense for retained. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 9 points on a Scrabble board:
retained is one of two eight-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing retained unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are detainer and retained, worth 9 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from retained 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 retained produce 256 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 eight-letter words, 6 seven-letter words, 42 six-letter words, 58 five-letter words, 77 four-letter words, 50 three-letter words and 21 two-letter words.