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I’m not a champion Scrabble player by any means - I often resort to words like “at” and “it” just to use up a turn. But with this list, hopefully I’ll be a little more creative when using tiny little words. And if all else fails, there’s always “ZQFMGB”… a worm found in New Guinea, according to Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes.
1. Aa. And I don’t mean the acronym for Alcoholics Anonymous, either. Aa is “basaltic lava having a rough surface.”
2. Qat – a flowering plant native to East Africa and the Arabian peninsula.
3. Zax – a slater or slate mason, or the tool used to cut and punch nail holes in roofing slate.
4. Cwm – a valley, especially one created by glacial movement. Be warned: this one won’t get you many points, but it is good for using up pesky, low-score consonants taking up valuable space on your rack.
5. Xu – Vietnamese money
6. Qua – as or as being, or in the character of.
7. Suq – a market, or part of a market, in an Arab city.
8. Adz – an axe-like tool.
9. Jo – sweetheart or dear
10. Qadi – a judge in the Muslim community.
Don’t forget Qi and Xi and Qwijibo.
posted by David on 8-28-2008 at 2:52 pm
And ZA, ratified by the latest edition of the Scrabble dictionary. It means “pizza.”
posted by Andrej on 8-28-2008 at 3:02 pm
As soon as I saw the title I thought of Xu. I love playing it, when someone asks what it means you get to saw, “It’s one one-hundredth of a dong.”
posted by Witty Nickname on 8-28-2008 at 3:27 pm
I always thought only English word were allowed why all these not English words now allowed? I’m just askin’….
posted by schmelz on 8-28-2008 at 3:37 pm
Zax – a slater or slate mason, AKA the guy who…
Who what? Mortars slate? Make slate tiles? Prepares sandwiches? Sleeps in really late?
posted by Jason! on 8-28-2008 at 4:02 pm
schmelz they are words that have been adopted into the english language despite originating elsewhere. There is no english alternative for them.
posted by jess on 8-28-2008 at 8:29 pm
I’m proud of myself, I knew quite a few. Anybody else knew a couple?
posted by Anon on 8-29-2008 at 12:12 am
I used to play an online version of Scrabble. It had a built-in list of acceptable words. This made for some long games and took part of the fun out of it, but it certainly increased my knowledge of unheard of words.
posted by kbar on 8-29-2008 at 12:54 am
If you want to excel at Scrabble, learn your two and three letter words.
I still don’t understand why GI (a judo or karate uniform) is not allowed. Is it an abbrevation possibly?
I miss Scrabulous on Facebook…I wish they would bring it back and soon! I need to get off Mental Floss….I’m learning way too many tidbits!
posted by Martin on 8-29-2008 at 2:07 am
i won a game with the work ex.
posted by motorkitty on 8-29-2008 at 7:56 am
I’m a little confused by the comment about CWM… at ten points, it’s not worth that much less than some of the other three letter words. Am I missing something?
lol at reCaptcha: its Indiana
posted by Tom on 8-29-2008 at 8:59 am
If I remember correctly from Word Freak, to get into the Scrabble dictionary it needs to appear in like 2 or 3 dictionaries from a list of 7.
That’s why some common words aren’t allowed, but darnit, they should be!
Random aside, my best word ever was “expensed” down the right hand side. Triple-Triple word score for a cool 194 points.
Best game was 525
posted by Kevin on 8-29-2008 at 9:11 am
Scrable replaced Scrabulous on Facebook with a Scrable branded and Scrable approved version. Better graphics, too.
posted by L on 8-29-2008 at 9:17 am
What about Zoquo and ushnu?
posted by ir1337 on 8-29-2008 at 10:39 am
Tom,
1) Its a consonant dump.
2) Its a consonant dump of multiple point letters.
BRR and BRRR are fun, too.
posted by TGT on 8-29-2008 at 11:21 am
Martin,
The makers of Scrabulous have a new game to replace Scrabulous called Wordscraper. You can create a custom board layout and assign tile values/distributions, so it can end up playing like Scrabble. The only things I’ve noticed missing are blank tiles and the bonus 50 points for using all your letters in one turn.
posted by Kevin on 8-29-2008 at 11:38 am
>I still don’t understand why GI (a judo or karate uniform) is not allowed. Is it an abbrevation possibly?
Its not an abreviation, but it also doesn’t mean a juodo or karate uniform. Its just the japanese word for uniform. a judo uniform would be a Judogi. a swimsuit is a mizugi (water uniform), etc.
posted by Joseph on 8-29-2008 at 12:04 pm
the scrabble game on facebook is terrible… slow slow slow … scrabulous was much better!!! with or without the graphics, it was much more user friendly to play
posted by Amy on 8-29-2008 at 12:16 pm
The Scrabulous guys DO have a replacement for their game… it’s called Wordscraper.
posted by IcyStorm on 8-29-2008 at 1:03 pm
Haha! QWM :D
i always try and spell it quim, the only way i’ve ever heard it acutally used is a colloquialism for, well, what else could a word meaning valley be a colloquialism for :D
posted by eadipus on 8-29-2008 at 4:31 pm
Qat
Zu
Suq
Qadi
those are all great words, but aren’t only english words legal in scrabble?
posted by Andrea on 8-29-2008 at 5:30 pm
Faqir is a great Q without U word.
a Muslim or Hindu mendicant monk who is regarded as a holy man
posted by S. on 8-29-2008 at 9:56 pm
I was a scrabble champ in College! I have used some of these words
posted by Sexy Pinay on 8-31-2008 at 7:32 am
Also, don’t forget, that while Adz is good, Adze is even better. Many people have thought they were hot stuff when they they played adz, only to be smacked by my hammer of justice when I use it as a build for some high-scoring word with an “E” in it. Go scrabble!
posted by Matthew Zito on 8-31-2008 at 4:13 pm
xu is listed as vietnamese money. This is a word we used to use in our house when playing Scrabble, and I was sure it was Vietnamese Cow Dung.
Perhaps I was mislead…
posted by Peter Reed on 8-31-2008 at 4:17 pm
I’ll be making use of these words. Got to get my Scrabble on.
posted by Free Xbox 360 Elite on 8-31-2008 at 6:07 pm
Gi is permitted in sowpods. I use it all the time!
posted by Elise on 8-31-2008 at 7:48 pm
@David no no no, it’s Kwyjibo. I’ll stand up and applaud for anyone who manages to use that in a game, and I’d never challenge.
posted by arjuna on 9-1-2008 at 12:21 am
ah yes, cwm… my go to word if i want to start an argument (since we usually play scrabble dictionaryless).
posted by chudez on 9-1-2008 at 11:16 am
Don’t forget: ‘Shazam’ and ‘Pro-V’ (for you Spaced fans).
posted by Apocrypha on 9-1-2008 at 4:21 pm
Don’t forget these. I won the World’s 2005 championship with these :-
XX
Biz
Qoz
Dq
Qd
and my best
Zz
posted by Likcos on 9-1-2008 at 4:51 pm
also, BIZE (a cold, dry wind that blows from the north or northeast in south central Europe) - another fun one to pull out to burn the smarty pants who plays BIZ.
other useful ones:
AI
OE
XI
QI
posted by Em on 9-2-2008 at 12:50 am
Quetzal.
posted by Alberto Dietz on 9-2-2008 at 5:16 am
Hm-m— let me…. Oh— hm is accepted in my computer Scrabble game.
posted by carolmac on 9-2-2008 at 6:13 am
Best sequence I ever had was across four turns - my opponenents kept missing their opportunities. First “cent,” then added “s” for “scent,” then “a” for “ascent,” then next turn I dropped the “n” on the front for “nascent.”
posted by Bruno on 9-2-2008 at 9:22 am
China has a hundred and sixty cities with a population of over one million. Memorize the names, and you’ll never have too many X’s and J’s!
posted by imp on 9-2-2008 at 10:01 pm
za does not mean pizza
Za \Za\, n. (Min.)
An old solfeggio name for B flat; the seventh harmonic, as
heard in the or aeolian string; — so called by Tartini. It
was long considered a false, but is the true note of the
chord of the flat seventh. –H. W. Poole.
[1913 Webster] Zabaism
from the twl dictionary.
posted by Maggie on 9-3-2008 at 9:54 am
Those are some good ones! Good to know you can add an “e” to adz to get even more use out of the Z.
posted by Johnny Underscore on 9-4-2008 at 6:50 pm
imp, “China has a hundred and sixty cities with a population of over one million. ”
Proper nouns, such as place names, are not allowed. Play anyone of those, I challenge, you lose your turn.
posted by Glen Litsinger on 9-6-2008 at 10:59 pm
good!
posted by wow gold on 9-7-2008 at 8:25 pm
I was out of the country when article was posted. Here is my late Scrabble question: Given ideal letters and an ideal board, can anyone out there top 325 points on one laydown? The word I use is “quizzings.” The set up is the harder part but maybe people have an even higher valued single word.
Someone must have worked this out.
posted by John Loth on 9-20-2008 at 7:38 am
RAJ and TAJ are great, but nothing beats a well placed X (OX, EX, AX, XI, XU)
posted by Tbot on 10-7-2008 at 10:42 am
I knew all of these except for cwm. I’ll have to keep that in mind.
posted by Alex on 10-20-2008 at 5:26 pm
My personal faves are: qaid, hadj(i), djin(n,ni), waw, juba, zoeaea, tranq and qintar. Jo, joe, joey, joeys.
oh, and czar(ina) and tzar(ina)
posted by scrabbleaddict on 11-11-2008 at 1:50 pm
Scrabulous has become Lexulous–identical.
Love the word jin, alt spellings incl. jinn djin djinn jinni djinni
posted by a n n e on 11-12-2008 at 10:11 am