Sowpods Scrabble Tips

A Nestful of Aeries

2012-01-16T19:12:00.001Z

Or should that be Eyrie?

Well luckily there's lots of ways to spell the word for an eagle's nest in Scrabble. Especially if you are using the most up to date Collins Scrabble Words (CSW) for 2012.

You can spell it:

AERY
AERIE
AIERY
AYRIE
EYRIE
EYRY

A very handy bingo can also be made using the letters AEEIIRS:

AIERIES

Some of the new Scrabble words

2011-05-09T08:07:00.031+01:00

Here are some of the latest additions to the Scrabble canon. I look forward to finding and learning all the 3,000 additions. You can download a list of the most useful three to eight letter new Scrabble words for 2011 here. Innit?

You can read a comprehensive introduction to the new list at the WESPA site.

However you can't actually use them until January 2012. No harm in learning a few though.

ACIDFREAK
ALOO: (Hindi) a potato
ALU: (Hindi) a potato
ARTHOUSE: a style of film
AUTOSAVE: a facility which automatically saves newly-recorded data
BARCODE
BIMBETTE
BREDREN: brother
CHAVETTE
CLIT: clitoris
DYKON: a celebrity, often a woman, who is much admired by lesbians
FACEBOOK
FANSITE
FIQH: Islamic jurisprudence, an expansion of the Sharia Islamic law
GAK: cocaine
GOBI: cauliflower
GREBO: a devotee of heavy metal or grunge music, with unkempt hair and clothes
GRRL and GRRRL: as in RIOT GRRL, a young woman who plays or enjoys an aggressively feminist style of punk rock music
INBOX: email folder for incoming mail
INNIT: isn't it
KEEMA: (Hindi) in Indian cookery, minced beef
MEH: mediocre or boring; an expression of indifference or boredom
MILF: a sexually attractive middle-aged woman
MINGIN
MOOBS: overdeveloped breasts on a man, caused by excess weight or lack of exercise
MWAH: a representation of the sound of a kiss
MYSPACE
NANG: (slang) excellent, cool
NOOB: an Internet novice, a NEWBIE
OFFIE and OFFY: (slang) an off-licence
PAEDO: short for paedophile
PERVY: perverted
PERVIEST
PUNAANY: female sex organ
QIN: a kind of Chinese zither with silken strings
SCREAMO: a type of hardcore music
SNOTRAG
SOZ: short for sorry
STRIM: to cut grass with a Strimmer
SUG: to attempt to sell a product while purporting to be engaged in market research
TAOISEACH: prime minister of Ireland
THANG: (slang) thing
TIK: the drug methamphetamine in crystal form
TINA: (slang) crystal meth
TRANCEY: a style of music
TRANCIER
TWEENAGE: a child of approximately eight to fourteen years of age
TWIGLET: wheat snack
VLOG: video blogging
WAGYU: a breed of cattle
WEBZINE
WIKI: a collaborative web site that allows users control over the site's content

Stagier

2009-12-17T10:46:00.005Z

One combination of letters which seems to come up regularly for me is AEGIRST. The only word I can usually think of is "Stagier". After a bit more cogitation I thought of "GAITERS", but that was it. So I decided to look up the combo in "Scrabble Words" and came up with the following list:

AGISTER, AIGRETS, GAITERS, SEAGIRT, STAGIER, STRIGAE, TIRAGES, TRIAGES

Take a look at the list and then play a game of online hangman (which I created just for this purpose) to see how many you can remember. OK you are unlikely to lose a life because you know which letters are in the word, but it might help you to remember them for next time!

By the way, no I didn't know what most of them meant either. But I do now :)

Lexicomania

2009-11-24T13:40:00.002Z

Lexicomania is a site for sad people obsessed with Boggle and Scrabble. Whoopee! It has a great quiz. You need to solve each page before you can move onto the next one. I'm on page 2 out of 15. How well can you do? Thanks to Al for putting this together.

155 tricky four letter words (A-M)

2009-10-07T13:34:00.004+01:00

Here are 155 tricky four letter words which you can test yourself on using Flash cards and other games at http://quizlet.com/_qnj3

They include words such as: MAKI (Japanese) a slice of a cold rice concoction, COWK (dial.) to retch, feel nauseated and HOHA (NZ) bored, annoyed. Enjoy.

3 letters no vowels

2009-10-06T19:32:00.007+01:00

I've found a useful site which enables you to create your own sets of flash cards - which you can play various games with, as well as using it to learn the words. The site will remember which words you get right. I've created a set with three-letter SOWPODS Scrabble words containing only consonants.

There are 19 words to learn, plus their meanings, including such gems as myc, lym, wyn, tyg and many others.

Otarine plus one letter

2009-09-29T20:48:00.011+01:00

Let's say you happen to pull out the most likely and fruitful handful of letters in Scrabble: AEINORT

You already have a bingo: OTARINE (like or pertaining to seals)

But if you add one letter you can also make the following acceptable words:

A aeration

B baritone, obtainer, reobtain, taborine

C actioner, anoretic, creation, reaction

D arointed, deration, ordinate, rationed

H antihero

L oriental, relation, taileron

N anointer, inornate, reanoint

P atropine

R anterior

S anoestri, arsonite, notaries, notarise, rosinate, senorita

T tentoria

Z notarize

Scrabble on the iphone

2009-06-27T10:19:00.001+01:00

Scrabble has been implemented on the iphone - and it works really well. You can play against the computer (and choose the level of your opponent) or against a real opponent using Pass 'n Play. If they have an iphone, you can also play peer-to-peer using wi-fi.

To play, simply drag your chosen tiles onto the board, which automatically zooms in, pinch and drag to zoom in and out. Useful options include "Best Word" which will suggest the highest scoring word with the current rack. You can shake the iphone to shuffle the letters on your rack - or just tap the appropriate button.

Five letters beginning with X

2009-06-24T22:43:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I was playing real scrabble, with actual tiles. After playing in the virtual world for so long, the tiles and the board seem BIG. Anyway I was faced with an 'X' tantalisingly hovering above the triple. Could I think of a five-letter or longer word starting with 'X'? No.

So here are the five letter ones:

XEBEC, XENIA, XENIC, XENON, XERIC, XEROX, XERUS, XOANA, XYLAN, XYLEM, XYLIC and XYLOL. Easy when you look them up. There are quite a few six-letter ones too.

By the way, Xenia is the way that pollen influences the formation of fruit as well as being the name of a harp player I know in Norwich. And Xoana are images of gods which have fallen from heaven (see above).

Frequently played bingos

2009-06-24T10:36:00.002+01:00

AIRIEST and STONIER are two of my most played bingos, just thought I'd say that. Ones I have only played once (so far) include JONQUILS, UNSTATE and KATYDIDS. Jonquil is another name for the daffodil or narcissus. Below is a katydid.

Finding anagrams for your rack

2009-01-02T16:21:00.013Z

If you are truly stuck for an anagram when playing Scrabble, there are some great sites which offer you suggestions. The most effective of these seems to be http://www.wordseeker.net/ as you can choose which dictionary to use, such as SOWPODS or TWL and it gives you more valid words than the other sites I have tried.

Does it seem like cheating? Well, my own take on this is that I work really hard to think of a suitable word when it is my turn, then play the word. Afterwards, I sometimes check up to see what I could have played. For example, today (see image) I had the bingo SLANTER ready to put down but was blocked by my opponent. I was going to put it next to PATE to make SPATE, but he played MOGS. Afterwards I was able to see that I could also have tried ANTLERS, RENTALS, SALTERN and STERNAL. In this case, none of them would have fitted, but maybe I'll remember some of the other words for next time.

Save Scrabulous

2008-08-01T23:46:00.004+01:00

Scrabulous is back on Facebook, with a new name, new rules and circular tiles that could help its makers skirt legal claims from the owners of Scrabble.

Two days ago the creators of Scrabulous blocked their popular version of the word game from U.S. and Canadian users of Facebook. The Indian brothers behind Scrabulous were sued in federal court by Hasbro Inc., the owner of Scrabble's North American rights.

Now, the game has reappeared with the name Wordscraper. The change could help it avoid any brand confusion with Scrabble, a key point in trademark disputes.

The game itself has also changed. Instead of Scrabble-like square tiles, for instance, Wordscraper has circles. The tiles earning double and triple points have been rearranged, and tiles for quadruple points have been added.

Source: Yahoo News

Scrabble on Facebook - but not for everybody

2008-06-16T08:38:00.008+01:00

There is a new official Scrabble application available in Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/livescrabble. This is obviously there to replace Scrabulous, which currently looks like it will lose its court case.

The new application is very well-featured, with the possibility of playing live timed games, word check, letters remaining. Unfortunately at present it is only available outside the US and Canada because of copyright issues.

There are still one or two glitches as it is in Beta, but it is still fun to play. In the game above I am just about to put down my bingo!

Acceptable names in Scrabble

2008-05-04T12:13:00.013+01:00

Everybody knows that you are not allowed proper nouns in Scrabble (Sowpods version). However a quick trawl of the Scrabble dictionary reveals the following allowable words which are also people's names. This is only an initial list - I'm sure there are hundreds more. You might find a few surprises. Feel free to add any more that you know of in the comments.

abigail, alan, ana, ann, anna, ava, bill, billy, baldric, basil, beth, bob, bunty, charity, cher, cherry, cliff, carl, colin, crystal, dean, daisy, danny, dawn, deb, derrick, dexter, dick, don, donna, doris, emma, eric, erica, eve, faith, felicity, frank, gill, grace, harry, hazel, henry, holly, iris, ivy, jack, jade, jake, james, jane, jasmine, jasper, jean, jeanette, jeff, jenny, jessie, jill, jo, joanna, joe, joey, john, johnny, joy, kitty, laura, laurel, lily, louis, madge, martin, mary, matt, maud, mavis, mick, micky, mickey, mike, nardine, nat, natty, neal, nick, nicky, olive, oscar, otto, pat, pandora, pearl, peter, polly, rach, ray, rick, roger, rolf, rose, rosemary, ruby, ruth, sam, sandy, saul, sean, sharon, sherry, stella, steven, sue, tara, terry, toby, tom, tony, trace, vera, will, william, willy, xenia, zoot

Thanks to pupski for her suggestions.

Extend your vocabulary

2008-04-07T20:07:00.006+01:00

There are some great ways of extending your vocabulary through playing other games than Scrabble. On Facebook a really useful game is Word Twist which is basically an anagramming game but fun because you get to challenge your friends. At the end you get to see which words you couldn't find in the six or seven letter anagram. On Facebook as well, its worth playing Scramble and of course Scrabulous. By the way, there is a seven-letter anagram in the game shown on the left. Know what it is?

Can you spot the phonies?

2008-04-04T00:08:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I played this game online and managed to get four bingos: BLINDERS, CLANGER, NEAREST and STATING. They weren't exactly clever words but its the first time I managed four in one game. It was a challenge match, so there happened to be three "phonies" - one played by me and two by my opponent. If you can spot them, you could write the answer in the comments section. Click on the board to see a larger image.

Words I would like to play

2008-04-04T00:05:00.000+01:00

EUOUAE

More pork, please

2008-03-10T15:31:00.006Z

Coming from a vegetarian, that's a bit rich. But I want more pork, or to be precise morepork. Sometimes you come across a word in the dictionary that you just can't take your eyes off. The image is of a morepork owl, native to New Zealand and a protected bird of prey. You'll also be interested to know that they eat hairy huhu beetles. One day I hope to play "morepork" and "huhu" in Scrabble. They are both legal. Failing that, if I don't have eight letters, I could try "mopoke", an alternative spelling.

Most likely seven-letter words

2008-02-20T11:04:00.010Z

According to Scrabulous ETAERIO is the most likely seven-letter word to get in Scrabble. It refers to an aggregate fruit, like a raspberry - which is actually lots of little fruits joined at their bases. Another likely word is TAENIAE - the plural of TAENIA which was an ancient Greek hairband.

Some other high-probability bingos containing five vowels, in order of likelihood, include:

AEOLIAN - relating to the wind (the image is of an aeolian harp - a harp played by the wind)
OLEARIA - daisy bush
AIERIES - eyries or eagles' nests
DOULEIA - veneration of saints in RC Church
AEONIAN - everlasting
AENEOUS - brass coloured or greenish-gold
AREOLAE - coloured rings around human nipples
AUREOLE - halo
ALIENEE - person to whom a transfer of property is made
EUGENIA - plant of the clove family
AEROBIA - organisms that require oxygen

Being accused of cheating

2008-02-05T06:32:00.001Z

I play scrabble addictively online at www.isc.ro as well as on Scrabulous (in Facebook). Since I've been playing online, my ability to anagram in my head has increased enormously. This is probably due in no small part to the fact that I have played 6,400 games as UncleArly and 3,800 games as DJScratch (just to mention two of the handles I use on ISC) and I've just reincarnated as Banoffee (allowable word). Despite this, I still get accused of cheating from time to time - usually by people who have just lost a game. I don't cheat, I just spend some time learning the words that other players use against me, often looking them up afterwards. I also mostly play "Void" games which means you can try out words that you think might be right. The software refuses them if they are not acceptable in SOWPODS (or whichever dictionary you choose to use). Occasionally I play Single or Double Challenge games, where you cannot check the words as you play them. It keeps you on your toes!

Three letters, no vowels

2008-01-22T20:48:00.000Z

All the three letter words you can play just using consonants. Now these are really worth learning.

BRR BYS CLY CWM DRY FLY FRY GYM
GYP HMM HYP LYM MYC NTH NYS PHT
PLY PRY PST PYX RHY SHH SHY SKY
SLY SNY SPY STY SWY SYN THY TRY
TSK TWP TYG VLY WRY WYN ZZZ

Hasbro and Mattel

2008-01-18T00:35:00.000Z

Well Scrabulous is still alive, although apparently the Internet Scrabble Club is also under threat now. Can't Hasbro and Mattel (the international owners of Scrabble) see that Scrabulous and ISC are actually creating more fans of the game? It would be interesting to know if sales of the game have been affected since the rise of Scrabulous.

As Josh Quittner of Fortune suggests:

"If I were an evil genius running a board games company whose product line spanned everything from Monopoly to Clue, I might do this: Wait until someone comes up with an excellent implementation of my games and does the hard work of coding and debugging the thing and signing up the masses. Then, once it got to scale, I’d sweep in and take it over. Let the best pirate site win! If I were compassionate, I’d even cut in the guys who did all the work for a percentage point or two to keep the site running."

And now you really can join a Facebook group to save Scrabulous!

Four letter vowel dumps

2008-01-16T22:32:00.000Z

These are some really fab four-letter words with three vowels.

ALAE AIGA AMIA ANOA ATUA AULA PAUA
AKEE ALEE AWEE EALE EINA ILEA KAIE
EOAN TOEA AUNE IXIA JIAO MOAI NAOI
OBIA OHIA AITU HUIA KUIA UNAI OUMA
OUPA URAI LUAU UNAU EIDE EMEU EUGE
ONIE IURE OLEO MEOU HIOI MOOI OLIO

Four letters, no vowels

2008-01-14T00:52:00.000Z

So you've got no vowels on your rack? Don't despair - here are some effective SOWPODS four letter words containing no vowels!

BRRR BYRL CYST FYRD GYMP GYNY HWYL
HYMN JYNX KYND LYCH LYNX MYTH PFFT
PRYS PSST RYND SCRY SKRY SKYF SKYR
SPRY SYNC SYND SYPH TRYP TYMP TYND
TYPP TYPY WYCH WYND WYNN XYST YMPT

Scrabulous to be shut down?

2008-01-13T01:01:00.000Z

Hasbro, the manufacturers of Scrabble, are trying to shut down Scrabulous - the ninth most popular Facebook application. Invented by two brothers from Calcutta - Jayant, 21 and Rajat Agarwalla, 26, the application has 2.3 million active users as of today and 70 million pageviews in the past month. However Hasbro have warned Facebook of their intention to shut down Scrabulous.

So perhaps we do need a Facebook Group to Save Scrabulous! Watch this space.

If the worst comes to the worst we'll just have to continue playing live at http://www.isc.ro

How to play Anagrams

2008-01-13T00:22:00.000Z

Anagrams is a board-free word game that involves rearranging letter tiles to form words. It is very often played 'out of hours' at Scrabble tournaments around the world. The game has various other names, in particular 'Snap Jarnac' in the UK.

The game has been sold separately as a commercial product, but at Scrabble tournaments is typically played by any number of players (typically 4-8) using two sets of Scrabble tiles of different colour. Tiles are placed face down on the table and then turned over one by one, and players form words by combining unused tiles with existing words, their own or others'.

Whenever a player can form a word with the tiles in the middle of the table, possibly combined with words that he or another player has already formed, he calls out the word and uses those tiles to spell it out in front of him. If two players call out words simultaneously, the longer word prevails. All words must be at least five letters long and the new word must change the root of the old, thus allowing APPEAR to become PARAPET (+T), but not APPEARED (+E+D) or REAPPEAR (+E+R). Similarly, AXONE could not be 'stolen' by KLAXONED since the original letter order has not changed. A player may modify his own words, subject to the same rule.

When all tiles have been used or deemed unusable, each player scores points for the words in front of them. The score for each word is its length squared, thus a single 9-letter word would score 81pts while a 5-letter word and 6-letter word would score 25 + 36 = 61pts. The winner is the player with the most points.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.centrestar.co.uk/index.php5?title=Anagrams"

The Scrabble Lounge

2008-01-12T21:17:00.001Z

The perfect place to relax after a game of scrabble...

These Scrabble Sofas are made by Stephen Reed for employees in the London offices of Bloomberg financial services. Users can make words and leave messages with the screen printed letter cushions.

Two letter words

2008-01-11T00:53:00.000Z

Very handy for putting words alongside each other, these are all the two letter words allowable in SOWPODS Scrabble:

AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AM AN AR AS AT AW AX AY

BA BE BI BO BY CH DA DE DI DO

EA ED EE EF EH EL EM EN ER ES ET EX FA FE FY

GI GO GU HA HE HI HM HO

ID IF IN IO IS IT JA JO

KA KI KO KY LA LI LO

MA ME MI MM MO MU MY NA NE NO NU NY

OB OD OE OF OH OI OM ON OO OP OR OS OU OW OX OY

PA PE PI PO

QI RE SH SI SO ST TA TE TI TO

UG UH UM UN UP UR US UT WE WO

XI XU YA YE YO YU ZA ZO

Some handy bingos

2008-01-09T01:20:00.001Z

A couple of handy bingos if you happen to have AEIORST are:
OARIEST - like an oar
OTARIES - seals with ears

And nothing to do with the above, but handy nonetheless is
AEROSAT - a satellite

RETAIN these letters

2008-01-08T09:07:00.001Z

The letters left in your rack after you play a word are called your "rack leave". As you play your game, aim to get the following six letters in your rack:
R-E-T-A-I-N
With these six letters you can add almost any letter of the alphabet to make a bingo - thus scoring an extra 50 points bonus!
Learning the following words could help you increase your score by 50 or more points each time you play...
RETAIN + B: atebrin
RETAIN + C: cantier, ceratin, certain, creatin, crinate, nacrite, tacrine
RETAIN + D: antired, detrain, trained
RETAIN + E: arenite, retinae, trainee
RETAIN + F: fainter, fenitar
RETAIN + G: granite, gratine, ingrate, tangier, tearing
RETAIN + H: hairnet, inearth, therian
RETAIN + I: inertia
RETAIN + J: jantier, nartjie
RETAIN + K: keratin
RETAIN + L: entrail, latrine, ratline, reliant, retinal, trenail
RETAIN + M: meranti, minaret, raiment
RETAIN + N: entrain, trannie
RETAIN + O: otarine
RETAIN + P: painter, pertain, repaint
RETAIN + R: retrain, terrain, trainer
RETAIN + S: anestri, antsier, nastier, ratines, resiant, retains, retinas, retsina, stainer, starnie, stearin
RETAIN + T: intreat, iterant, nattier, nitrate, tartine, tertian
RETAIN + U: ruinate, taurine, uranite, urinate
RETAIN + W: tawnier, tinware