doubt over the correct spelling of HRYVNYA.
At the same time, seven-letter words are crucial to scoring big in Scrabble because if you can play one then you get that most wonderful of things, a fifty-point bonus. In the early days of serious Scrabble, players obsessed about learning as many sevens as they could because of this. It probably wasn’t the best approach to take and must have led to a lot of frustration as they waited, endlessly, to play ZYZZYVA (an American weevil). The secret is to confine yourself to the most useful ones, e.g. the sevens that are most likely to come up in play. These are those that consist solely of the one-point tiles LNRST and AEIOU – the commonest letters in the Scrabble bag.
Here are some of the high-probability seven-letter words to remember as you search for a bonus-score:
NATURES
NEROLIS oil used in making perfume
NEUTRAL
OILNUTS
RETAINS
RITUALS
SALUTER
TAILORS
TRISULA trident symbol of Hindu god
Nearly all of these have at least one anagram (one has ten – can you guess which?). If you can get into the habit of being able to look at your rack and say, “Ah yes, AILRSTU, that makes RITUALS”, you will soon automatically also see the anagram, TRISULA, and you can then play whichever one fits on the board, scores more, or is otherwise the better move.
(The mighty ten-anagrammer is RETAINS, making eleven anagrams including RETAINS itself.)
In the exact same way as it makes sense to concentrate on the sevens, which contain the commonest letters (AEIOU and LNRST), the eight-letter words with those same common letters are the ones that will pay the biggest dividends. Here are a few likely suspects:
LATRINES
LUNARIST one who believes the moon influences weather
NEUTRALS
NOTARIES
ORIENTAL
RETINOLS plural of retinol, a name for vitamin A
TENURIAL pertaining to a tenure
TONSILAR pertaining to a tonsil
TURNSOLE a plant with flowers said to turn towards the sun
Again, many of these have anagrams, and it’s a good idea to learn a few as it is often harder to place an eight-letter word on the board. For instance, ORIENTAL is an anagram of RELATION, but the third anagram TAILERON may be the only one that fits.
Here are some fantastic fours to help you get rid of awkward consonants:
JIAO Chinese unit of currency
JEUX plural of JEU, a game
EAUX plural of EUA, a river
QUAI same as QUAY
QUEP expression of derision
QUOP to throb
QAID Arabic chief
QADI a Muslim judge
FIQH Islamic jurisprudence
WAQF Islamic charity
DZHO another spelling of ZO, our old friend the yak-cow cross
ZOOT as in zoot suit, a once fashionable man’s suit
VIVA to give a candidate an oral exam
VIVE long live
VIVO with vigour
VEXT same as VEXED
VIZY to look
WILI a spirit
CWMS plural of CWM, a Welsh valley
TSKS from TSK, to tut in irritation
Good players can look at their rack at any given stage of the game and know what sort of move they should be trying to make. Most racks will fall into one of five categories; here’s what you should look to do for each type:
Too many vowels: Use one of the multi-vowel words or change.
Too many consonants: Use a multi-consonant word or change. There are lots of common five- and six-letter words which can help get rid of excess consonants: PRINT, TRUCK, CLAMP, FRONT, THRONG, etc.
Bonus-friendly: Good balance of vowels and consonants, mainly one-point tiles, no double letters (or one at most). Have a good look for a bonus word, either a seven or a playable eight. If you can’t find it, play off the least appealing letters to increase your chance of a bonus on the next turn. Don’t neglect to still get a reasonable score now if you possibly can.
High value: Two or more of the higher-scoring tiles (those scoring three or more) but with vowels to help you use them. Play the high-value tiles, making maximum use of premium squares. It helps if the high-value tiles go nicely with each other, like CHK, rather than being incompatible like GVW.
Just rubbish: Racks full of incompatible letters like IJUY, or low-value tiles that don’t look like they’re close to a bonus, like GLLNOOU. With this sort of rack you probably just have to play off as many as you can for as much as you can, or change.
The D is one of only two letters worth two points (the other is the G), and this indicates its status as not being quite as common as the one-point consonants.
Its main use for bonuses is for forming past tenses and past participles of verbs – PLANTED, SPRAYED, INFLATED, REMAINED and thousands more. There are also lots of words with DE- at the beginning – DELOUSE, DEVELOP, DENATURE and so on. This does show the main weakness of the D which is that it needs an E to be most effective, although DIS- can also be a handy prefix, with words like DISPLAY, DISCORD, DISTRACT.
There are eight two-letter words with D:
AD an advertisement
ED an editor
ID
