tellies needs no unscrambling at all — the seven-letter word is already the strongest play its own letters allow, banking 7 points in Scrabble as it stands. In all, 85 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
tellies is the highest-scoring word from tellies, worth 7 points in Scrabble. The top 10 of 85 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
Only one seven-letter word uses the letters in tellies — and it is tellies itself. No unscrambling is needed: the word is already playable as written, worth 7 points in Scrabble.
Unscrambling tellies turns up 4 six-letter words. No common everyday answer stands out among these six-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are elites, illest, listee, and listel, each worth 6 points in Scrabble.
There are 18 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in tellies. If a familiar word is all you need, start with steel, still, and tells. For points, 18 words tie at 5 points, including steel, still and tells.
Rearranging the letters in tellies produces 30 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with else, lets and lies. For points, 30 words tie at 4 points, including else, lets and lies.
Unscrambling tellies turns up 23 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ill, its and let. For points, 23 words tie at 3 points, including ill, its and let.
4 eight-letter words can be made using all the letters in tellies plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in tellies and you get a different seven-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 6 of the 7 letters, not all of them.
tellies 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 one sense for tellies. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 7 points on a Scrabble board:
tellies is the only seven-letter word the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing tellies unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring play from these letters is tellies, worth 7 points in Scrabble, and no other word from tellies 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 tellies produce 85 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 1 seven-letter word, 4 six-letter words, 18 five-letter words, 30 four-letter words, 23 three-letter words and 9 two-letter words.