Hidden inside startles sit starlets and startles, eight-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 8 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 244 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
starlets and startles tie for the highest Scrabble score from startles at 8 points. The top 10 of 244 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 eight-letter words hiding in startles: one comes from rearranging its letters, and startles itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. If a familiar word is all you need, start with startles. For points, the strongest plays are starlets and startles — each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in startles produces 14 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with startle. For points, 14 words tie at 7 points, including startle, artless and lasters.
Unscrambling startles turns up 36 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with alerts, alters and lasers. For points, 36 words tie at 6 points, including alerts, alters and lasers.
There are 67 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in startles. If a familiar word is all you need, start with alert, alter and laser. For points, 67 words tie at 5 points, including alert, alter and laser.
Rearranging the letters in startles produces 70 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with arts, ears and east. For points, 70 words tie at 4 points, including arts, ears and east.
Unscrambling startles turns up 42 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with are, art and ass. For points, 42 words tie at 3 points, including are, art and ass.
There are 13 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in startles. If a familiar word is all you need, start with as and at. For points, 13 words tie at 2 points, including as, at and ae.
6 nine-letter words can be made using all the letters in startles plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in startles 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.
startles 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 startles. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 8 points on a Scrabble board:
startles is one of two eight-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing startles unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are starlets and startles, worth 8 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from startles 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 startles produce 244 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 eight-letter words, 14 seven-letter words, 36 six-letter words, 67 five-letter words, 70 four-letter words, 42 three-letter words and 13 two-letter words.