Glossary of Scrabble Terms

 

Abbreviations: DLS - Double letter score DWS - Double word score TLS - Triple letter score TWS - Triple word score ? Blank

Alphagram: The alphabetic arrangement of a group of letters.  Example: BGINO is the alphagram of the word BINGO.  You should arrange your rack of 7 letters in alphagram order.

Anagram: A word that is spelled with the exact same letters as another word.  For example CAT is an anagram of ACT and vice versa.

Back extension: See extension

Back hook: See hook

Balancing your rack: Making a play that leaves the letters on your rack likely to lead to a high score next turn by leaving valuable letters leftover like an S or an X and by leaving a good ratio of vowels to consonants. Also known as rack balance.

Bingo: Earning a bonus of an extra fifty points by using up all your tiles.

Bingo prone tiles: A set of tiles likely to make a bingo.  For example: ERST or ED or ALT

Blank: The most valuable letter as it has no letter printed on it and it can represent any of the 26 letters.  It's usually used in a bingo.

Blank bingo: A bingo using a blank.

Blocking: The act of playing a word that stops an opponent from making a high scoring play in a certain place on the board.  Also called: closing the board.

Challenge: Called when an opponent thinks a word is unacceptable, ie. not in the Scrabble dictionary.  If any of the formed words are not in the dictionary, the whole play must be removed and the player loses his turn.  If the word is acceptable ie. in the dictionary, the challenger opponent loses his or her turn.

Chess clock: Two clocks housed in one clock with time running on one clock until a button is pressed then the opponent's time clock is run.  Each player has twenty five minutes to play a Scrabble game.  You're penalized ten points per overtime minute.

Coffeehousing: To make small talk to distract your opponent from thinking.  You don't talk while playing Scrabble.

Double - Double: To make a play down a line with two DWS premium squares scoring four times the value of the word including any DLS covered.

Endgame: That portion of a SCRABBLE game when there are fewer than eight tiles left to be drawn from the bag.

Exchanging tiles: Instead of playing a word on the board you can use a turn to exchange 1 to 7 tiles for new tiles from the bag as long as there are at least 7 tiles left in the bag.

Extension play: Making an addition of two or more letters to the front or back of a word.  Ie add NING to the end of BEGIN for BEGINNING.

Fishing: Playing for only a few points by burning only one or two low value tiles keeping bingo prone tiles to bingo the next turn or exchanging only 1 - 2 tiles keeping 5 - 6 really good tiles.

Flashcard: A small 1 x 3 card or index card with nine to fifteen alphagrams in order on one side and correctly spelled words in order on the other side.  Lexpert from www.carolravi.com does free flashcard study on the PC.

Front Extension: See extension.

Front hook: See hook.

Hook: One letter only added to the beginning or ending of a word already on the word.  For example:  Adding a F to LUSH to make FLUSH.

Hot spots: Specific squares on the board which are premium squares that offer high scoring opportunities.  Look for vowels adjacent to triple letter squares, single letters in a DWS - DWS column, a word that takes a variety of hooks.

Leave: Leftover letters not used up in a play and left on a rack.

Natural: A bingo that does not use a blank.

Nongo: A bingo that won't play on the board.

Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, Third Edition: Used to verify acceptable words.  OWL is used for tournament play in North America.

Open board: A board with many high scoring opportunities left on it.

Parallel play:  A word placed parallel to another word on the board either on top of it, underneath it or at one side of it. 

Passing: Saying pass and not playing a word and not exchanging tiles and scoring zero.  After six scores of zero the game is over.

Phoney: An unacceptable word not found in the Scrabble dictionary and denoted with a * after the word.  If it isn't challenged to come off the board, it's allowed and stays on the board.

Point spread: The difference between the winner and loser's score expressed as + for the winner and - for the loser.

Power tiles: Ten of them, two blanks, four S's, J, Q, X and Z.  The Q is not a good tile so you can count K instead if you'd rather count that way.

Rack balance: See balancing your rack.

Rack management: Developing your rack towards the goal of playing a bingo over multiple turns by playing non bingo tiles and saving bingo prone tiles.

Rating: A score saying how skillful a player you are in tournament from 200 to 2100.  Experts have scores from 1800 up.

Round: One play of each opponent.

Stems: Certain 5 and 6 letter combinations useful for making a bingo with so they are kept as leaves ie RETINA, SATINE, IERST etcetera.

Tile tracking: The use of a tracking sheet to track all the tiles used so far in the game by crossing off each tile used and at the end of the game calculating what tiles the opponent has when there are no tiles left in the bag.  Used to optimize an endgame.

Total Point Spread: Point spreads for every single game of a tournament added together.  Used to separate players with equal win loss ratios.

Triple - triple: Playing a word that covers two TWS premium squares in one turn scoring 9 times the value of the word. Usually done with an 8 letter word and using all 7 tiles using one letter already in the column from previous plays.

Turnover: Play as many tiles as you can to maximize chances of drawing power tiles.

Two to make threes: Two letter words that take a third letter to make a three letter word in front or behind.  Also three to make fours.

Word list: A list of words all in a certain category, often listed by alphabetical order by alphagram ie all 3 letter words.