Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix
McAfee Secure sites help keep you safe from identity theft, credit card fraud, spyware, spam, viruses and online scams
Stacy Conradt
10 Words That Will Help You Win at Scrabble
by Stacy Conradt - January 4, 2009 - 12:22 PM

scrabbleI’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.

See Also…

A Scrabble Quiz by Sandy Wood & Kara Kovalchik

« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Comments (10)

  1. If you play using the official British Scrabble Dictionary you can also have “Qi”. When I moved to America I specifically bought a British Scrabble Dictionary so that I could keep playing that.

    posted by Jen on 1-4-2009 at 1:03 pm

  2. these are some great words to keep in mind. I wonder how well the online scrabble will take them.

    I live in France and have played with bilingual people. We had a French to English and English to French dictionary and accepted both languages. It was funny when a word was started in French, changed to a different word in English, and then back to a new word in French.

    posted by Cindy King on 1-4-2009 at 1:23 pm

  3. Qoph = Hebrew letter

    posted by Norman Eoff on 1-4-2009 at 2:08 pm

  4. I think that Qadi AND Qaid both work and mean the same thing.

    posted by annie on 1-4-2009 at 5:31 pm

  5. I had a priest who loved to remind people that “pyx” is a good Scrabble word. It’s the container in which the Eucharistic bread is kept, for those non-Catholics out there.

    posted by catherine ann on 1-4-2009 at 8:55 pm

  6. Syzygy is when 3 celestial bodies are aligned such as during an eclipse.

    posted by Jeff on 1-4-2009 at 11:53 pm

  7. Jen, “qi” and “za” are both legal in the US with the fourth-edition dictionary updates. However, both the Scrabble dictionary and the Hasbro Web site are expurgated and don’t have swear words and other offensive words that are actually game legal.

    Annie, both “qadi” and “qaid” are allowed, but “qadi” is a Muslim judge, and “qaid” is a Muslim leader.

    posted by Andy on 1-5-2009 at 11:34 am

  8. the 2009 scrabble desk calendar has all the acceptable 2-letter words on the page before January 1.
    I once won a game with “ex”. no doubt the little words can be trouble!!
    I love perusing the dictionary before playing and then seeing how many words I can actually end up using.

    posted by motorkitty on 1-5-2009 at 2:37 pm

  9. It peeves me when people use words outside of English (if playing in English).

    @Norman: Hebrew can’t be standardized in English letters since it has its own alphabet.

    posted by Yonit on 1-5-2009 at 9:19 pm

  10. Sorry, but according to the rules, nothing that must be capitalized can be used. Some of these would seem to be so.

    posted by Diane Smith on 11-5-2009 at 9:03 am

Comment

commenting policy