Hidden inside substrates sit abstrusest and substrates, ten-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 12 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 420 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
abstrusest and substrates tie for the highest Scrabble score from substrates at 12 points. The top 10 of 420 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 ten-letter words hiding in substrates: one comes from rearranging its letters, and substrates itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. No common everyday answer stands out among these ten-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are abstrusest and substrates, each worth 12 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling substrates turns up 3 nine-letter words. No common everyday answer stands out among these nine-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are substates and substrate, each worth 11 points in Scrabble.
There are 11 eight-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in substrates. If a familiar word is all you need, start with statuses. For points, 9 words tie at 10 points, including abstruse, abutters and asbestus.
Rearranging the letters in substrates produces 33 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with assures, breasts, and statues. For points, 19 words tie at 9 points, including breasts, abusers and abutter.
Unscrambling substrates turns up 76 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with abuses, assure and barest. For points, 36 words tie at 8 points, including abuses, barest and basses.
There are 111 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in substrates. If a familiar word is all you need, start with abuse, asses and bases. For points, 52 words tie at 7 points, including abuse, bases and bears.
Rearranging the letters in substrates produces 108 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with arts, bare and bars. For points, 44 words tie at 6 points, including bare, bars and base.
Unscrambling substrates turns up 61 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with are, art and ass. For points, 19 words tie at 5 points, including bar, bat and bet.
There are 15 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in substrates. If a familiar word is all you need, start with as, at, be, and us. For points, the strongest plays are ab, ba, and be — each worth 4 points in Scrabble.
substrates 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 2-point gap between the two totals comes from the tile values themselves: Scrabble and Words With Friends price the same letters differently.
Dictionaries record four senses for substrates. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 12 points on a Scrabble board:
substrates is one of two ten-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing substrates unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are abstrusest and substrates, worth 12 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from substrates 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 substrates produce 420 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 ten-letter words, 3 nine-letter words, 11 eight-letter words, 33 seven-letter words, 76 six-letter words, 111 five-letter words, 108 four-letter words, 61 three-letter words and 15 two-letter words.