Barry Grossman - 101 Ways to Win at Scrabble - Top tips for Scrabble success

ANTIs, along with their definitions:

ANTIFAT of a drug, etc., tending to remove fat

ANTIFUR opposed to the wearing of fur

ANTIJAM preventing jamming

ANTILOG mathematical term

ANTIMAN opposed to men

ANTISAG preventing sagging

ANTICOLD preventing the common cold

ANTIDRUG opposed to illegal drugs

ANTILOCK designed to prevent overbraking

ANTIPOLE the opposite pole

ANTIRUST treated so as not to rust

The A is in suffixes too, like -ABLE, -ATE, -ANT, -IAL and -IAN.

4 Too Much of a Good Thing

With too many As, there are plenty of short words to help get you out of trouble:

AA a type of volcanic lava

AAH exclamation of surprise, pleasure, etc.

AAL an Asian shrub or tree

AAS plural of AA

ABA type of cloth made from goat or camel hair

AGA Muslim ruler

AHA exclamation of triumph or surprise

AIA a female servant

AKA a type of vine

ALA a wing

AMA a vessel for water

ANA a collection (e.g. Victoriana)

AUA yellow-eye mullet

AVA a Polynesian shrub

AWA away

BAA sound made by a sheep

CAA Scots for call

FAA Scots for fall

MAA sound made by a goat

5 Three-Letter Words

The three-letter words are almost as useful as the twos because there are so many ways of adding a letter to a two-letter word to make a three-letter one. That helps you place words on the board and get a higher score by playing more words in one move.

There are 1,341 valid three-letter words so it will take you a while to get to know all of them. It can be done – you can absorb them partly by learning and partly (and more enjoyably) by playing. The more you play, especially against better players, the more you will see these words and the more you will find you remember them.

To get things rolling …

6 Three-dom!

Here are some of the best three-letter words to start you off:

All vowels:

AIA a female servant in India or South Africa

AUA a mullet (the fish, not the hairstyle beloved of 1980s footballers)

AUE a Māori exclamation

EAU a river

All consonants:

BRR expressing cold

CWM Welsh for valley

HMM expressing doubt or hesitation

NTH of an unspecified number

PHT expressing irritation

PST attracting attention

SHH requesting silence

TSK expressing annoyance

TWP Welsh word meaning stupid

The all-consonant words exclude those containing Y, which acts as a vowel in words like DRY, and one other rather ridiculous word which we will come to later. You shouldn’t worry about it because, believe me, you will never play it.

7 Small but Powerful

Using a three-letter word can be a great way to use the high-scoring tiles J, Q, X and Z, especially by getting the power tile on a double- or triple-letter square. Here are some that might help you:

J first: JUD a block of coal

J second: GJU that Shetland violin again, an alternative spelling to GU.

J third: there are three, HAJ, RAJ and TAJ, all of Indian origin.

Q first: QAT an intoxicating drug

Q third: SUQ an Arab market-place

X first: XIS plural of XI, a Greek letter – the only three starting with X

X second: OXO containing oxygen

X third: TEX a unit of weight of yarn

Z first: ZOL a cannabis cigarette

Z second: AZO a term used in chemistry

Z third: WIZ short for wizard

There are even some three-letter words with two power tiles: JIZ (a wig), ZAX (saxophone) and ZEX (a tool for cutting slates). There are no three-letter words with Q in the middle.

8 Not the B All and End All

The B is not one of the most useful letters. It’s most often used in shorter words, preferably on a premium square to increase its value, and preferably to help you get rid of your other less useful letters. Good B-words for this are:

BEZ an antler on a deer’s horn

BIZ colloquial for business

JAB

JIB

JOB

WAB dialect form of web

CAB

BAC the baccalaureate, a French exam (and now being introduced in the UK)

FAB

FIB

FOB

FUB to cheat

BAH

BOO

BOA

9 Queen Bs

Here are some B-eautiful words that use unusual letter combinations:

BOOAI thoroughly lost

BRAAI South African barbecue

OBEAH type of witchcraft once supposedly used in the West Indies

BRAAI and OBEAH can also be verbs, so as well as BRAAIS and OBEAHS, you can also have BRAAIED, BRAAIING, OBEAHED and OBEAHING.

There are some U-less (but far from useless) words that contain B with Q:

NIQAB, NIQAAB Muslim veil

QIBLA direction of Mecca, to which Muslims turn when praying

10 B is for Bonus

The most likely way of using B in a bonus word is probably something beginning with BE- or BI-. The -ABLE suffix is also worth remembering (NOTABLE, OPENABLE) and quite a few with an optional E in the middle: LIV(E)ABLE, LOV(E)-ABLE, NAM(E)ABLE, MAK(E)ABLE, TAK(E)ABLE.

If you are holding on to the common AEIOU and LNRST letters to look for bonus words, you could use a B to make:

ATEBRIN an anti-malarial drug

BANTIES bantams

BASINET mediaeval helmet

BESAINT to make into a saint

BESTAIN

BAITERS people who use bait

BARITES plural of barite, a mineral

REBAITS

TERBIAS plural of terbia, a white powder

BANISTER

SEABLITE plant of the goosefoot family

INSTABLE

BARONIES lands owned by a baron

SEAROBIN an American fish

11 Four-Letter Words

With well over 5,000 to choose from, getting a grip on the four-letter words is quite a job. Once again, you can make your life easier by concentrating on the most useful ones; they are the words with excess vowels or excess consonants, words that use J, Q, X and Z, and words that help you get rid of awkward letter combinations.

The most memorable of the four-letter words (though conversely, one you can easily misspell) is EUOI. It is one of various ways to spell “an expression of Bacchic frenzy”. (None of the other ways of spelling it is an all-vowel word.) As Bacchus was the Roman god of wine, what we are basically saying here is it’s what Romans shouted when they were drunk.

Knowing this meaning, you could form a little phrase to remember the tricky spelling. Try:

Excessive Units Of Intoxication

Not only do you remember how to spell the word, you now have an idea what to do when you’re finished playing Scrabble.

12 Four Play

But there’s, perhaps sadly, more to life than Bacchic frenzy. There are quite a few fours with three vowels – in fact, every consonant except F and Y is part of at least one three-vowel four. Here is one for every possible combination of three different vowels:

AEI gives IDEA

AEO gives ODEA

AEU gives BEAU

AIO gives IOTA

AIU gives AITU

AOU gives AUTO

EIO gives ONIE

EIU gives LIEU

EOU gives ROUE

IOU – none – except that cry of Bacchic frenzy EUOI

Again, you can see there are a few familiar ones mixed in with some exotica. ODEA, for instance, were Greek or Roman buildings for entertainment, the plural of odeum or the more familiar odeon. An AITU is a half-human, half-divine being, like some of the incredibly good players I try to beat on the tournament Scrabble circuit. A ROUE is a man given to immoral living (some of them on the circuit too), while, more prosaically, ONIE is a Scots version of any.

13 More on All Fours

There are a few four-letter words with no vowels, not even a Y:

BRRR, GRRL, PFFT, PSST

You know three of those, even if you have never thought of them as words in a Scrabble context – BRRR is what you say when you’re cold, PSST is for surreptitiously attracting someone’s attention, and PFFT is one of those words that everyone knows but is rather hard to define – a sound to indicate deflating, diminishing or disappearing. A GRRL is a young woman who enjoys aggressively feminist rock music, just the type you are likely to meet at your local Scrabble club.