shortage needs no unscrambling at all — the eight-letter word is already the strongest play its own letters allow, banking 12 points in Scrabble as it stands. In all, 389 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
shortage is the highest-scoring word from shortage, worth 12 points in Scrabble. The top 10 of 389 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
Only one eight-letter word uses the letters in shortage — and it is shortage itself. No unscrambling is needed: the word is already playable as written, worth 12 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in shortage produces 8 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with gathers, hostage, and storage. For points, the strongest plays are gathers, gheraos, and hostage — each worth 11 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling shortage turns up 33 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with gather, hearts, and others. For points, the strongest plays are garths, gasher, gather, gerahs, and gherao — each worth 10 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 97 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in shortage. If a familiar word is all you need, start with earth, gates, ghost, goats, great, hates, and hears. For points, the strongest plays are garth, gerah, ghast, ghats, ghost, goeth, and goths — 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 shortage produces 140 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ages, argh, arts, ears, east, eats, and egos. For points, the strongest plays are argh, gash, ghat, gosh, goth, hags, hogs, shag, and shog — 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 shortage turns up 86 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with age, ago, are, art, ash, ate, and ear. For points, the strongest plays are hag and hog — 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 24 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in shortage. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ah, as, at, eh, go, ha, and he. For points, the strongest plays are ah, eh, ha, he, ho, oh, and sh — each worth 5 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Swap a single tile in shortage 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.
shortage 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.
Both totals match, because every tile in shortage carries the same value on a Scrabble board and on a Words With Friends board.
Dictionaries record two senses for shortage. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 12 points on a Scrabble board:
shortage is the only eight-letter word the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing shortage unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring play from these letters is shortage, worth 12 points in Scrabble, and no other word from shortage 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 shortage produce 389 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 1 eight-letter word, 8 seven-letter words, 33 six-letter words, 97 five-letter words, 140 four-letter words, 86 three-letter words and 24 two-letter words.