Hidden inside tough sit ought and tough, five-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 9 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 23 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
ought and tough tie for the highest Scrabble score from tough at 9 points. The top 10 of 23 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 five-letter words hiding in tough: one comes from rearranging its letters, and tough itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. Here the everyday answers and the top-scoring plays are one and the same: ought and tough, worth 9 points apiece in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Rearranging the letters in tough produces 4 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with thou. For points, the strongest plays are goth and thug — each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling tough turns up 11 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with got, gut, hog, hot, hug, out, and tho. For points, the strongest plays are hog, hug, and ugh — each worth 7 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 tough. If a familiar word is all you need, start with go, ho, oh, to, and uh. For points, the strongest plays are ho, oh, and uh — each worth 5 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 tough 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.
tough 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 twelve senses for tough. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 9 points on a Scrabble board:
tough is one of two five-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing tough unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are ought and tough, worth 9 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from tough 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 tough produce 23 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 five-letter words, 4 four-letter words, 11 three-letter words and 6 two-letter words.