K-words from New Zealand

New Zealand has made a few additions to the language, mainly Māori words which have been absorbed into English, or they have in New Zealand anyway, all adding richness to our Scrabble game vocabulary. Most of these words contain a K, which can be an awkward letter. These words can help you play it and even turn it to your advantage if you land it on a premium square:

HAPUKA, HAPUKU a large fish

HIKOI a protest march

KAI food

KATIPO a venomous spider

KAURI a coniferous tree

KAWA protocol

KOHA a gift or donation

KORU a curved pattern

KUIA a female elder

KURI a mongrel dog

MOKI an edible fish

By Barry Grossman

Barry is a leading UK Scrabble player and winner of several tournaments. He is the author of Scrabble for Beginners (Chambers), Need to Know Scrabble, Scrabble – Play to Win and The Little Book of Scrabble Trickster. He has also contributed to numerous other books on the subject of words and word-games, has been a series champion of Channel 4’s Countdown, and has written four comedy series for BBC Radio 4. He lives in Hertford.

All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.

Related Articles

Other Articles

The letter O

The O is not just the fourth vowel alphabetically, it is also the fourth-best in Scrabble, not quite as good as A or I, certainly nowhere near as good as the E, but better than the U. Having said that, it has the advantage that if you get too many… Read More

Challenge!

In this country (certainly until you get to the more high-level tournaments) you can challenge any word your opponent plays “free of charge”; if it does turn out to be a valid word, you don’t lose anything. Many players don’t make full use of this rule; they will look doubtfully… Read More

The letter N

The N, being one of the one-point tiles, clearly figures in a lot of bonus words. You can think of dozens of words beginning with EN-, IN-, CON-, UN- and other prefixes. It comes up in endings like -MAN, -MENT, -TION and -ING. But just a few words of warning… Read More