The letter D

The D is one of only two letters worth two points (the other is the G), and this indicates its status as not being quite as common as the one-point consonants.

Its main use for bonuses is for forming past tenses and past participles of verbs – PLANTED, SPRAYED, INFLATED, REMAINED and thousands more. There are also lots of words with DE- at the beginning – DELOUSE, DEVELOP, DENATURE and so on. This does show the main weakness of the D which is that it needs an E to be most effective, although DIS- can also be a handy prefix, with words like DISPLAY, DISCORD, DISTRACT.

There are eight two-letter words with D:

AD an advertisement

ED an editor

ID term used in psychoanalysis

OD hypothetical force or form of energy

DA a Burmese knife

DE of (found in place-names such as Ashby de la Zouch)

DI plural of deus, a god

DO

And here are some useful three- and four-letter words with D:

DSO, DZO, DZHO all alternative spellings of ZO

DOJO a room where martial arts are practised

JEDI a person who embraces the philosophy of the Jedi from the Star Wars films

DEXY a dextroamphetamine pill

DIXI interjection meaning “I have spoken”

DIXY a large pot for water

DOXY a religious opinion or doctrine

Not forgetting the ultra-useful QAID (a chief) and

QADI (a Muslim judge).

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.

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