ATELIC is a valid Scrabble word — 8 points
Yes. ATELIC is accepted by every list we check: Collins, the North American lists and Words with Friends. It scores 8 points in Scrabble and 10 in Words with Friends.
Which word lists accept ATELIC?
| Official Scrabble Players DictionaryUSA, Canada, Thailand | Valid |
|---|---|
| Official Tournament and Club Word ListUSA, Canada, Thailand | Valid |
| Collins Scrabble WordsEnglish in most countries | Valid |
| Words with FriendsZynga word list | Valid |
Word power: 29 / 100
Our own measure of how useful ATELIC is to know. It scores 8 from 6 tiles, takes 0 hooks, and its letters make up 7.0% of the bag. How this number is calculated
Hooks for ATELIC
No single letter turns ATELIC into another word.
How ATELIC scores
Face value of the 6 tiles in ATELIC, before any board multiplier.
Tiles you need
| Letter | Needed | In the bag |
|---|---|---|
| a | 1 | 9 |
| t | 1 | 6 |
| e | 1 | 12 |
| l | 1 | 4 |
| i | 1 | 9 |
| c | 1 | 2 |
Drawing exactly these 6 tiles as an opening rack: 1 in 25,550.
What does ATELIC mean in Scrabble?
adjective
technical
Describing a verb or event that has no built-in endpoint, so that it can continue indefinitely rather than reach a natural completion.
Linguists classify a verb as atelic when its action could go on forever without needing to finish, as with run or sleep, in contrast to a telic verb such as arrive, which implies reaching a definite endpoint. The distinction matters for grammar because atelic verbs combine naturally with phrases like for an hour, while telic verbs pair more naturally with in an hour. Because an atelic event has no built-in finish line, sentences built from such verbs can often be interrupted at any point without changing their basic meaning. The term belongs mainly to academic writing on tense, aspect and verb meaning rather than to everyday grammar teaching.
How ATELIC is used
A specialist term in linguistics, used to classify verbs and events by whether they have a natural endpoint.
- Run is a classic example of an atelic verb in English grammar.
- The professor contrasted atelic verbs with their telic counterparts.
- An atelic event can be stopped at any moment without losing its meaning.
- She wrote her thesis on atelic aspect in Slavic languages.
- The textbook lists sleep and walk among common atelic verbs.
Written for this site: 1 meaning of ATELIC and 5 example sentences, not copied from a published dictionary.
Shorter words from the letters in ATELIC
Showing 40 of 84. See all in the Word Finder
Common questions about ATELIC
- Is ATELIC valid in Words with Friends?
- Yes. Words with Friends accepts ATELIC, where it scores 10 points. That game keeps its own list, separate from the Scrabble dictionaries.
- How many points is ATELIC worth?
- ATELIC is worth 8 points in Scrabble and 10 points in Words with Friends.
- What does ATELIC mean?
- Describing a verb or event that has no built-in endpoint, so that it can continue indefinitely rather than reach a natural completion.
- What letters can be added to ATELIC?
- No single letter can be added to ATELIC to make another word.
Every word you can build from the 6 letters of ATELIC:
Open ATELIC in the Word Finder