Hidden inside total sit lotta and total, five-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 5 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 20 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
lotta and total tie for the highest Scrabble score from total at 5 points. The top 10 of 20 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 five-letter words hiding in total: one comes from rearranging its letters, and total itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. If a familiar word is all you need, start with total. For points, the strongest plays are lotta and total — each worth 5 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Rearranging the letters in total produces 4 valid four-letter words. No common everyday answer stands out among these four-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are alto, lota, tola, and tolt, each worth 4 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling total turns up 8 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with lot. For points, the strongest plays are alt, att, lat, lot, oat, tao, tat, and tot — each worth 3 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 6 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in total. If a familiar word is all you need, start with at and to. For points, the strongest plays are al, at, la, lo, ta, and to — each worth 2 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Swap a single tile in total and you get a different five-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 4 of the 5 letters, not all of them.
total 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 seven senses for total. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 5 points on a Scrabble board:
total is one of two five-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing total unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are lotta and total, worth 5 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from total 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 total produce 20 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 five-letter words, 4 four-letter words, 8 three-letter words and 6 two-letter words.