Hidden inside nationals sit nationals and santolina, nine-letter plays tied at the top of this rack with 9 points in Scrabble apiece. In all, 265 valid words come out of this rack, grouped by length below and checked for Words With Friends as well as Scrabble.
nationals and santolina tie for the highest Scrabble score from nationals at 9 points. The top 10 of 265 words are shown here, with the full list organized by length below.
There are 2 nine-letter words hiding in nationals: one comes from rearranging its letters, and nationals itself is already a playable word with no unscrambling required. No common everyday answer stands out among these nine-letter results, so let the score decide: the highest-scoring words are nationals and santolina, each worth 9 points in Scrabble.
There are 6 eight-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in nationals. If a familiar word is all you need, start with national. For points, 6 words tie at 8 points, including national, alations and annalist.
Rearranging the letters in nationals produces 12 valid seven-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with nations. For points, 12 words tie at 7 points, including nations, alanins and alation.
Unscrambling nationals turns up 27 six-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with nation. For points, 27 words tie at 6 points, including nation, alanin and alants.
There are 60 five-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in nationals. If a familiar word is all you need, start with lions, loans and nails. For points, 60 words tie at 5 points, including lions, loans and nails.
Rearranging the letters in nationals produces 90 valid four-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with also, ants and into. For points, 90 words tie at 4 points, including also, ants and into.
Unscrambling nationals turns up 46 three-letter words. If a familiar word is all you need, start with ant, its and lit. For points, 46 words tie at 3 points, including ant, its and lit.
There are 22 two-letter words that can be made by unscrambling the letters in nationals. If a familiar word is all you need, start with an, as and at. For points, 22 words tie at 2 points, including an, as and at.
4 ten-letter words can be made using all the letters in nationals plus one additional letter.
Swap a single tile in nationals and you get a different nine-letter rack with its own word list. None of these appear in the results above — they share 8 of the 9 letters, not all of them.
nationals 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 3-point gap between the two totals comes from the tile values themselves: Scrabble and Words With Friends price the same letters differently.
Dictionaries record eight senses for nationals. Scrabble and Words With Friends score tiles and not meanings, so every sense below is worth the same 9 points on a Scrabble board:
nationals is one of two nine-letter words the same letters produce. No arrangement of the same tiles scores higher in Scrabble, so playing nationals unchanged also takes the maximum points these letters offer.
The highest-scoring plays from these letters are nationals and santolina, worth 9 points in Scrabble, and nothing else built from nationals 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 nationals produce 265 valid words in the Scrabble and Words With Friends dictionaries. The word count by length is: 2 nine-letter words, 6 eight-letter words, 12 seven-letter words, 27 six-letter words, 60 five-letter words, 90 four-letter words, 46 three-letter words and 22 two-letter words.