Hidden inside sallying sit sallying, signally, and slangily, eight-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 12 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 158 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
sallying, signally, and slangily tie for the highest Scrabble score from sallying at 12 points. The top 10 of 158 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 3 eight-letter words hiding in sallying: two come from rearranging its letters, and sallying 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 sallying, signally, and slangily, each worth 12 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in sallying produces 2 valid seven-letter words. No common everyday answer stands out among these seven-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are allying and slaying, each worth 11 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling sallying turns up 16 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with laying, lyings, saying, and signal. For points, 7 words tie at 10 points, including laying, lyings and saying.
There are 36 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in sallying. If a familiar word is all you need, start with gains, lying, nails, and silly. For points, 7 words tie at 9 points, including lying, gaily and gally.
Rearranging the letters in sallying produces 51 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with gain, gals and lays. For points, 6 words tie at 8 points, including agly, gays and sagy.
Unscrambling sallying turns up 36 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with all, any and gal. For points, the strongest plays are gay and yag — each worth 7 points in Scrabble.
There are 14 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in sallying. If a familiar word is all you need, start with an, as and ay. For points, the strongest plays are ay and ya — each worth 5 points in Scrabble.
2 nine-letter words can be made using all the letters in sallying plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in sallying 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.
sallying 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.
sallying is one of three eight-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing sallying unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are sallying, signally, and slangily, worth 12 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from sallying 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 sallying produce 158 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 3 eight-letter words, 2 seven-letter words, 16 six-letter words, 36 five-letter words, 51 four-letter words, 36 three-letter words and 14 two-letter words.