starving 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, 233 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
starving is the highest-scoring word from starving, worth 12 points in Scrabble. The top 10 of 233 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
Only one eight-letter word uses the letters in starving — and it is starving itself. No unscrambling is needed: the word is already playable as written, worth 12 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in starving produces 6 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ratings and staring. For points, the strongest plays are ravings and staving — each worth 11 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling starving turns up 22 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with giants, grants and rating. For points, the strongest plays are raving, saving, and virgas — each worth 10 points in Scrabble.
There are 58 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in starving. If a familiar word is all you need, start with gains, giant and grant. For points, the strongest plays are vangs, vigas, and virga — each worth 9 points in Scrabble.
Rearranging the letters in starving produces 79 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with airs, ants and arts. For points, the strongest plays are vagi, vang, viga, and vigs — each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling starving turns up 53 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with air, ant and art. For points, the strongest play is vig — worth 7 points in Scrabble.
There are 14 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in starving. If a familiar word is all you need, start with an, as and at. For points, the strongest plays are ag and gi — each worth 3 points in Scrabble.
3 nine-letter words can be made using all the letters in starving plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in starving 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.
starving 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.
Dictionaries record two senses for starving. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 12 points on a Scrabble board:
starving is the only eight-letter word the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing starving unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring play from these letters is starving, worth 12 points in Scrabble, and no other word from starving 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 starving produce 233 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 1 eight-letter word, 6 seven-letter words, 22 six-letter words, 58 five-letter words, 79 four-letter words, 53 three-letter words and 14 two-letter words.