What is a hook in Scrabble?
A hook is a single letter that turns a word already on the board into a different word. It is the cheapest way to score twice with one tile, and it is the difference between playing next to the board and playing with it.
Front hooks and back hooks
Two kinds, and they behave differently at the board:
- Back hook — a letter added to the end. CAT becomes CATS. Easy to spot, and the S is the one everybody knows.
- Front hook — a letter added to the start. EAR becomes HEAR, or PEAR, or YEAR. Much harder to see, because you are reading a word that is already there and your eye does not want to put anything in front of it.
Both matter for the same reason: when you hook, you score the new word and the word you built with the rest of your tiles. One tile, two words, and often a premium square counted twice.
What the hooks of a real word look like
Read from our dictionary as this page loaded, for the lists you have switched on:
| Word | Front hooks | Back hooks |
|---|---|---|
| EAR | B D F G H L N P R S T W Y (13) | D L N S (4) |
| ATE | B C D F G H L M P R S T W Y (14) | S (1) |
| IN | A B D F G H J K L P Q R S T V W Y Z (18) | G K N S (4) |
Every word page on this site carries the same table for that word, so you can check any word on the board before you decide where to play.
Why hooks decide crowded boards
Early in a game there is space, and you can play anything anywhere. By the middle there is no space, and the only moves available run alongside or through what is already there. At that point the question stops being “what can I make from my rack” and becomes “what will fit against that word”.
A player who knows hooks sees three or four attachment points on a board where another player sees none. That is the whole skill, and it is why the players who study two-letter words improve so quickly: most hooks create a two-letter word crossways, and knowing whether that cross-word is valid is exactly what lets you commit.
The S is not a hook, it is a resource
Almost every noun takes an S, so the S hooks onto nearly anything — and there are only four in a Scrabble bag, five in Words with Friends. Spending one to score five extra points is usually a bad trade: the same S later attaches your seven-letter word to an existing one and turns a good move into a fifty point one.
The habit worth building: before playing an S, ask what it would be worth on your next turn. If the answer is “the same five points”, play it. If the answer is “it could hook a bingo”, hold it.
Blocking with hooks
Hooks work in both directions, which most players notice only after losing to it. If you leave a word with an open hook next to a triple word lane, you have handed your opponent a sixty point move. Sometimes the right play is the one that scores less and closes the attachment point — the reasoning in open the board or close it.
Common questions
Does a hook have to be one letter? Yes, by definition. Adding more than one letter to an existing word is just playing a longer word through it, which is also legal and also scores both words.
Do both words have to be valid? Every word formed on the turn must be valid, including all the cross-words. That is the rule that makes the two-letter list so valuable.
Where can I see the hooks for a word? On its page here — look up any word in the dictionary and the hooks are computed for it, front and back, per dictionary.
Is it the same in Words with Friends? The mechanic is identical; the word list is not, so a hook that works in one game may not exist in the other. Check with the WWF finder if that is the game you are playing.