There seems to be almost no combination of letters, however unlikely, that doesn’t appear in a word somewhere. Here are ten of the oddest-looking words, but they all exist, they’re all in the dictionary, and they’re all valid for Scrabble:
BDELLIUM African or Asian tree
EPOPOEIA an epic poem
MPRET former ruler of Albania
MZUNGU in E Africa, a white person
PHTHISIS a wasting disease
PSCHENT an ancient Egyptian crown
SDEIGN an old form of disdain
SFORZATI plural of SFORZATI, a symbol for a musical instruction
TAUIWI a Māori word for non-Māori people
TCHICK to make a clicking noise with the tongue
One of the joys of Scrabble is the way it leads you to the weird and wonderful corners of the dictionary where these words hide. Life seems better for knowing there’s a TCHICK in it.
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.
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