A surprising number of common first names are valid words. If one of these is you, that’s at least one unusual word you are guaranteed to remember:
BARRIE very good
BARRY a blunder
DANNY a hand
DAVY a miner’s safety lamp
GLORIA a silk, wool, cotton, or nylon fabric
LAURA a type of monastery
MARYJANE court shoe with a strap over the top
MILLIE a young working-class woman
PAM the knave of clubs in a pack of cards
RONNIE Dublin slang for a moustache
TINA crystal meth
TONY stylish
Quite a few countries are also allowable words. Here’s a world trip of nations you might find on the Scrabble board:
BOLIVIA a type of fabric
CANADA a type of goose
GREECE a flight of steps
HOLLAND a coarse material
JAPAN to coat with black lacquer
JORDAN a chamber pot
RUSSIA a kind of leather
SPAIN to wean
TONGA a light two-wheeled Indian vehicle
WALES same as WEALS, marks left on the skin by a blow
England and Scotland are not words but do have anagrams – ENDLANG (lengthwise) and COTLANDS (grounds attached to a cottage). IRELAND … six one-point tiles and the D worth two, no duplicates, well balanced between vowels and consonants, just the sort of rack that should yield a bonus … makes no seven-letter words at all.
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.
