sidewalks needs no unscrambling at all — the nine-letter word is already the strongest play its own letters allow, banking 17 points in Scrabble as it stands. In all, 320 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
sidewalks is the highest-scoring word from sidewalks, worth 17 points in Scrabble. The top 10 of 320 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
Only one nine-letter word uses the letters in sidewalks — and it is sidewalks itself. No unscrambling is needed: the word is already playable as written, worth 17 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling sidewalks produces exactly one eight-letter word: sidewalk. It is an everyday word and an easy play, worth 16 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in sidewalks produces 5 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 sawlike and walkies, each worth 14 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling sidewalks turns up 32 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with aisles, kissed and ladies. For points, the strongest play is walked — worth 14 points in Scrabble.
There are 93 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in sidewalks. If a familiar word is all you need, start with aisle, alike and aside. For points, the strongest plays are dawks and waked — each worth 13 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in sidewalks produces 112 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with aids, asks and deal. For points, the strongest play is dawk — worth 12 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling sidewalks turns up 56 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ads, aid and ask. For points, the strongest plays are dak and kid — each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
There are 20 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in sidewalks. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ad, as and aw. For points, the strongest plays are ka and ki — each worth 6 points in Scrabble.
Swap a single tile in sidewalks and you get a different nine-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 8 of the 9 letters, not all of them.
sidewalks 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 sidewalks. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 17 points on a Scrabble board:
sidewalks is the only nine-letter word the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing sidewalks unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring play from these letters is sidewalks, worth 17 points in Scrabble, and no other word from sidewalks 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 sidewalks produce 320 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 1 nine-letter word, 1 eight-letter word, 5 seven-letter words, 32 six-letter words, 93 five-letter words, 112 four-letter words, 56 three-letter words and 20 two-letter words.