Hidden inside holes sit helos, holes, hosel and 1 other, five-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 8 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 38 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
helos, holes, hosel and 6 others tie for the highest Scrabble score from holes at 8 points. The top 10 of 38 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 4 five-letter words hiding in holes: three come from rearranging its letters, and holes itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. If a familiar word is all you need, start with holes. For points, the strongest plays are helos, holes, hosel, and sheol — each worth 8 points in Scrabble.
The full list follows, sorted A to Z; every score reflects tile constraints and skips board bonuses.
Rearranging the letters in holes produces 10 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with hole, hose, lose, and shoe. For points, the strongest plays are helo, hoes, hole, hols, hose, and shoe — each worth 7 points in Scrabble.
Below, the list runs in alphabetical order, with each score based on the playable tile set — premium squares not included.
Unscrambling holes turns up 13 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with she. For points, the strongest plays are hes, hoe, hos, ohs, she, sho, and soh — each worth 6 points in Scrabble.
The words below are listed alphabetically. Scores count playable tiles only and leave out premium-square bonuses.
There are 11 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in holes. If a familiar word is all you need, start with eh, he, ho, oh, sh, and so. For points, the strongest plays are eh, he, ho, oh, and sh — 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 holes 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.
holes 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.
Both totals match, because every tile in holes carries the same value on a Scrabble board and on a Words With Friends board.
Dictionaries record ten senses for holes. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 8 points on a Scrabble board:
holes is one of four five-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing holes unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are helos, holes, hosel, and sheol, worth 8 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from holes 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 holes produce 38 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 4 five-letter words, 10 four-letter words, 13 three-letter words and 11 two-letter words.