Hidden inside settlers sit settlers, sterlets, and trestles, eight-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 8 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 124 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
settlers, sterlets, and trestles tie for the highest Scrabble score from settlers at 8 points. The top 10 of 124 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 3 eight-letter words hiding in settlers: two come from rearranging its letters, and settlers 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 settlers, sterlets, and trestles, each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in settlers produces 12 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with letters, settles, and streets. For points, 12 words tie at 7 points, including letters, settles and streets.
Unscrambling settlers turns up 21 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with letter, settle and steels. For points, 21 words tie at 6 points, including letter, settle and steels.
There are 28 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in settlers. If a familiar word is all you need, start with rests, steel and steer. For points, 28 words tie at 5 points, including rests, steel and steer.
Rearranging the letters in settlers produces 35 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with else, less and lets. For points, 35 words tie at 4 points, including else, less and lets.
Unscrambling settlers turns up 19 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with let, see, and set. For points, 19 words tie at 3 points, including let, see and set.
There are 6 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in settlers. No common everyday answer stands out among these two-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are el, er, es and 3 more, each worth 2 points in Scrabble.
1 nine-letter word can be made using all the letters in settlers plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in settlers 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.
settlers 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 three senses for settlers. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 8 points on a Scrabble board:
settlers is one of three eight-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing settlers unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are settlers, sterlets, and trestles, worth 8 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from settlers 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 settlers produce 124 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 3 eight-letter words, 12 seven-letter words, 21 six-letter words, 28 five-letter words, 35 four-letter words, 19 three-letter words and 6 two-letter words.