The best Scrabble word at every length
Face value only: no board bonuses, no blanks, just the raw points from the standard English Scrabble letter values. Every word below is the genuine top scorer at its length, or overall, in our 168,401-word dictionary — RAZZAMATAZZES tops the whole list at 51 points, from 13 letters.
Best word at every length
One word per length, highest face value first when there is a tie. 14 of the 14 per-length winners contain a J, Q, X or Z — those four letters dominate the top of nearly every length, not only the overall list below:
| Length | Word | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | AX | 9 |
| 3 | ZAX | 19 |
| 4 | JAZZ | 29 |
| 5 | JAZZY | 33 |
| 6 | BEZAZZ | 35 |
| 7 | ZYZZYVA | 43 |
| 8 | ZYZZYVAS | 44 |
| 9 | QUIZZICAL | 38 |
| 10 | RAZZMATAZZ | 48 |
| 11 | RAZZAMATAZZ | 49 |
| 12 | RAZZMATAZZES | 50 |
| 13 | RAZZAMATAZZES | 51 |
| 14 | QUIZZICALITIES | 43 |
| 15 | OXYPHENBUTAZONE | 41 |
The top 15 overall
Length stops mattering once Z, Q, X and J start stacking up:
| Word | Points |
|---|---|
| RAZZAMATAZZES | 51 |
| RAZZMATAZZES | 50 |
| RAZZAMATAZZ | 49 |
| RAZZMATAZZ | 48 |
| QUIZZICALITY | 44 |
| ZYZZYVAS | 44 |
| QUIZZICALITIES | 43 |
| QUIZZICALLY | 43 |
| ZYZZYVA | 43 |
| OXYPHENBUTAZONE | 41 |
| PIZAZZY | 39 |
| BENZODIAZEPINES | 38 |
| HYDROXYZINES | 38 |
| PSYCHOANALYZING | 38 |
| QUIZZICAL | 38 |
15 of these 15 words contain a J, Q, X or Z — the four letters worth the most points individually, and the ones that make a rack both dangerous and lucrative at once.
Where the values come from
Scrabble's letter values are not arbitrary: rarer letters score more, and commoner ones score less. The letter-frequency guide measures that rarity letter by letter across the same dictionary. Of the ten most common letters in our word list, 9 are worth a single point; the others cost more — C (3).
Best words you could actually play
The tables above lean heavily on words most players have never seen and would struggle to defend at a club table. Restricting the search to our common-word list — words a player might realistically hold, spell and recognise on sight — at typical rack lengths:
| Length | Best common words (points) |
|---|---|
| 5 letters | FUZZY (29), PIZZA (25), QUICK (20), CRAZY (19), JIMMY (19), XEROX (19) |
| 6 letters | PUZZLE (26), CHEQUE (20), ENZYME (20), HAZARD (19), JACKET (19), JOHNNY (19) |
| 7 letters | QUIZZES (34), PUZZLES (27), QUICKLY (25), QUALIFY (22), COMPLEX (20), HAZARDS (20) |
| 8 letters | MAXIMIZE (28), EQUIPPED (22), ANALYZED (21), EXCHANGE (21), HIGHWAYS (21), MINIMIZE (21) |
Letter values
The standard English-language tile values used throughout this site and for every score above:
| Points | Letters |
|---|---|
| 1 | A E I L N O R S T U |
| 2 | D G |
| 3 | B C M P |
| 4 | F H V W Y |
| 5 | K |
| 8 | J X |
| 10 | Q Z |
At the top, Q and Z are worth ten points each; J and X are worth eight. At the bottom, 10 letters — A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T, U — are worth a single point apiece, and between them those 10 letters fill most racks most of the time.
The caveats
Face value ignores the board: a word placed on a triple-word square, or crossing a double-letter square on its highest-value tile, scores far more than the number in these tables. It also assumes the tiles could be drawn at all — several of the top scorers above repeat a letter that a real rack of seven tiles cannot hold outright without a blank standing in for the extras. And our dictionary is built from ENABLE, a public-domain word list that predates some words added to modern tournament dictionaries, so a handful of very short, very valuable plays recognised today do not appear here — see our two-letter words guide and Q-without-U list for the detail on both.