Stacy Conradt
The Quick 10: 10 Words That Will Help You Win at Scrabble
by Stacy Conradt - August 28, 2008 - 2:43 PM

q10

scrabble 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.

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Comments (73)

  1. Don’t forget Qi and Xi and Qwijibo.

    posted by David on 8-28-2008 at 2:52 pm

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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

  9. 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

  10. i won a game with the work ex.

    posted by motorkitty on 8-29-2008 at 7:56 am

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. 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

  14. What about Zoquo and ushnu?

    posted by ir1337 on 8-29-2008 at 10:39 am

  15. 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

  16. 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

  17. >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

  18. 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

  19. 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

  20. 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

  21. 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

  22. 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

  23. 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

  24. 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

  25. 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

  26. 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

  27. Gi is permitted in sowpods. I use it all the time!

    posted by Elise on 8-31-2008 at 7:48 pm

  28. @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

  29. 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

  30. Don’t forget: ‘Shazam’ and ‘Pro-V’ (for you Spaced fans).

    posted by Apocrypha on 9-1-2008 at 4:21 pm

  31. 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

  32. 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

  33. Quetzal.

    posted by Alberto Dietz on 9-2-2008 at 5:16 am

  34. Hm-m— let me…. Oh— hm is accepted in my computer Scrabble game.

    posted by carolmac on 9-2-2008 at 6:13 am

  35. 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

  36. 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

  37. 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

  38. 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

  39. 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

  40. good!

    posted by wow gold on 9-7-2008 at 8:25 pm

  41. 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

  42. 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

  43. 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

  44. 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

  45. 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

  46. I played Scrabble with my mother-in-law one time and will not play again (at least not with her). She was using prefixes and suffixes as words because her dictionary had those in there. When I pointed this out she said “it is in the dictionary so it can be used”, yet I wasn’t permitted to use Jello (an actual word) because it was a brand name. When I tried to use another dictionary she wouldn’t allow it saying that “this is the one that we use for the game”. She continued to use these (words) several times during the game. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that only completed words were allowed not prefixes/suffixes. Needless to say this had me so upset, that someone would stoop that low just to win a game. From that time on I find it hard to even think of playing, let alone play with her. I know I need to grow up and get over it – I just think that it was poor sportsmanship on her part. Sorry, I just needed to vent.

    posted by neveragain on 12-1-2008 at 1:24 am

  47. “Random aside, my best word ever was “expensed” down the right hand side. Triple-Triple word score for a cool 194 points.”

    That is impressive. I don’t remember where I played it on the board, but my highest scoring single word ever was MOSQUE.

    I still lost by three points.

    posted by Lazarus on 12-1-2008 at 1:43 am

  48. Q: Is zqfmgb a worm found in new guinea?
    A: No, it is not. “Zqfmgb” is a made-up word from a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip panel.

    Source: wiki(dot)answers(dot)com/Q/Is_zqfmgb_a_worm_found_in_new_guinea

    posted by Ariady on 12-1-2008 at 3:19 am

  49. i am hooked on Lexulous. thanks to Scrabbulous for being reborn.

    thanks for the ammo!

    posted by dnez on 12-1-2008 at 7:14 pm

  50. qopf? I think means a small brook/river. Found in the Scrabble dictionary. A great way of getting rid of those pesky “Q”s, when you don’t have a handy “U” nearby.

    posted by hairymugwhump on 12-12-2008 at 2:06 am

  51. i am hooked on Lexulous. thanks to Scrabbulous for being reborn.

    thanks for the ammo!

    posted by thfg on 2-3-2009 at 1:41 am

  52. qopf? I think means a small brook/river. Found in the Scrabble dictionary. A great way of getting rid of those pesky “Q”s, when you don’t have a handy “U” nearby.

    posted by ffdd on 2-3-2009 at 1:43 am

  53. If “za” is accepted in TWL as a solfeggio syllable, then I wonder why “fi” isn’t also accepted (the raised fourth)?

    posted by Lolek1 on 2-13-2009 at 2:03 pm

  54. Triple-triple bingo – reinform, got 203 points. That game score was 528. Fun!

    posted by Barb Hegman on 5-30-2009 at 11:39 am

  55. If you like ADZ, come back next turn for alternate spelling ADZE, then again for plural ADZES. 30 points minimum for one Z.

    posted by John Penhallegon on 8-19-2009 at 2:12 am

  56. If these tips help you get an awesome score, submit it to the Scrabble Hall of Fame.

    http://www.5toclose.com/scrabblehalloffame.html

    Submit your score…be famous. :0)

    posted by Mark on 8-19-2009 at 10:50 pm

  57. If anyone can get away with JOZXYQK (a sound that is made when you get your genitals trapped in something), I think that would be a winner.

    posted by HKrm on 9-3-2009 at 12:58 pm

  58. proper nouns are not allowed in scrabble. so there goes half ur list

    posted by James on 11-9-2009 at 12:23 am

  59. James, none of the words in the list are proper nouns.

    posted by Sandy Wood on 11-9-2009 at 8:02 am

  60. I’m shocked nobody mentioned FEZ. I got a measly 45 points for that one using a triple word score but I’m an amateur so it was a big thing. :0)

    posted by Jannette on 11-16-2009 at 5:43 pm

  61. @HKrm – Is it in the dictionary? ;)

    posted by Oliver on 12-2-2009 at 5:47 am

  62. Hah hah, I lurv calvin and hobbes.
    I would say this one word that has four z’s in it, but there’s only one in the game.

    posted by NayNayNeko on 1-5-2010 at 9:24 pm

  63. I could see myself getting challenged for every one of these…

    posted by Rob on 6-29-2010 at 11:19 pm

  64. @schmelz, who asked:

    “I always thought only English word were allowed why all these not English words now allowed?”

    According to OSPD, when an English word is not available to represent a foreign word, that foreign word can be used. This often is the case for foreign coins. “Xu” is like “penny.”

    posted by iFone Words With Friends Fanatic on 10-1-2010 at 9:13 pm

  65. Za, Qi, and Xi are all killer, especially if you can play them in parallel – but what about the simple ones like “Ox” or “Ex”? Always useful for playing a longer word in parallel. I put together a list of good Scrabble X words which people might find useful – I always find X the hardest letter to get rid of.

    posted by Dave on 10-4-2010 at 11:01 am

  66. The best words are the bingo stems like “entail” there are 26 possible bingos from that word just by adding one more letter! Awesome!

    posted by Anagram Solver on 12-6-2010 at 12:48 am

  67. Entering the board and rack image that accompanies this story into my own Lexifind Scrabble Helper analysis program, I find the following words from your list:

    QaT (ending in the T of MENTAL)
    (also QATS built across to form NEEDS)

    SuQ three times (the highest-scoring of which is built down from the square separating DO from the final S of FLOSS, to form DOSS). Can you find the other two?

    Overall, the highest-scoring words playable with that board and rack are QuBITS (built across so that its S is placed under NEED to form NEEDS, for 38 points) and TOWIeS built down to the bottom middle triple word square for the same 38 points (a better play because it prevents your opponents from playing on that triple).

    In all, there are 2,838 words that can be played to that board, ranging from AB to ZITS, alphabetically.

    The longest word that can be made is MENTALISTs, which, although it has ten letters, scores only 12 points.

    The word that makes the largest number of crosses is ABATIS, played down from the A in MENTAL to form BO, AS and DOTS horizontally.

    posted by Lexifind Scrabble Helper on 12-26-2010 at 8:44 am

  68. I list ABATIS as having the “most” crosses because its final cross is made by connecting two separate sets of letters. However, there are several other words that also make three crosses (albeit more “ordinary” ones). One is a game, another I cannot say, and a third and fourth are homonyms for the truly clever among you.

    posted by Lexifind Scrabble Helper on 12-26-2010 at 9:11 am

  69. ARB
    BOA
    BOB
    COX
    DOR
    GYP
    HAW
    JOE
    JEE
    JIN
    MIM
    NAW
    PYA
    ULU
    ZOA
    ZIT
    ZEE… Usefull words.. don’t frget them too…!!!!

    posted by Azly Hazy on 3-12-2011 at 12:37 am

  70. ARB
    BOA
    BOB
    COX
    DOR
    GYP
    HAW
    JOE
    JEE
    JIN
    MIM
    NAW
    PYA
    ULU
    ZOA
    ZIT
    ZEE… Usefull words.. don’t forget them too…!!!!

    posted by Azly Hazy on 3-12-2011 at 1:04 am

  71. All this and nobody mentioned pyx? (A medieval church donation box.)

    posted by Jeff on 3-25-2011 at 12:26 pm

  72. Qi

    posted by Noe marmolejo on 8-18-2011 at 11:48 pm

  73. I learned QAT from a Barenaked Ladies children’s album. Those guys are fun AND helpful. ;)

    posted by Val on 8-19-2011 at 1:36 am

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