Hidden inside totem sit motet, motte, and totem, five-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 7 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 22 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
motet, motte, and totem tie for the highest Scrabble score from totem at 7 points. The top 10 of 22 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 3 five-letter words hiding in totem: two come from rearranging its letters, and totem itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. No common everyday answer stands out among these five-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are motet, motte, and totem, each worth 7 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Rearranging the letters in totem 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 mote, mott, and tome, each worth 6 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling totem turns up 7 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with met and toe. For points, the strongest plays are emo, met, mot, and tom — each worth 5 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 8 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in totem. If a familiar word is all you need, start with me and to. For points, the strongest plays are em, me, mo, and om — each worth 4 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 totem 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.
totem 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 two senses for totem. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 7 points on a Scrabble board:
totem is one of three five-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing totem unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are motet, motte, and totem, worth 7 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from totem 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 totem produce 22 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 3 five-letter words, 4 four-letter words, 7 three-letter words and 8 two-letter words.