tallying 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, 113 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
tallying is the highest-scoring word from tallying, worth 12 points in Scrabble. The top 10 of 113 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
Only one eight-letter word uses the letters in tallying — and it is tallying itself. No unscrambling is needed: the word is already playable as written, worth 12 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling tallying produces exactly one seven-letter word: allying. It is not one of the common answers — a genuine unscrambler find — and it banks 11 points in Scrabble.
There are 20 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in tallying. If a familiar word is all you need, start with giant, lying, and tying. For points, 7 words tie at 9 points, including lying, tying and gaily.
Rearranging the letters in tallying produces 40 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with gain, nail and tail. For points, the strongest plays are agly, yagi, and yang — each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling tallying turns up 30 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with all, ant and any. For points, the strongest plays are gay and yag — each worth 7 points in Scrabble.
There are 15 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in tallying. If a familiar word is all you need, start with an, at and ay. For points, the strongest plays are ay and ya — each worth 5 points in Scrabble.
3 nine-letter words can be made using all the letters in tallying plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in tallying 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.
tallying 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.
tallying is the only eight-letter word the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing tallying unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring play from these letters is tallying, worth 12 points in Scrabble, and no other word from tallying 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 tallying produce 113 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 1 eight-letter word, 1 seven-letter word, 6 six-letter words, 20 five-letter words, 40 four-letter words, 30 three-letter words and 15 two-letter words.