CENS is valid in Collins, not in North America — 6 points
It depends on the list you play by. CENS is in Collins, used in the UK and most of the world, but it is not in the North American lists — so in a US or Canadian game an opponent can challenge it off the board. Worth 6 points. Words with Friends does not accept it either.
Which word lists accept CENS?
| Official Scrabble Players DictionaryUSA, Canada, Thailand | Not listed |
|---|---|
| Official Tournament and Club Word ListUSA, Canada, Thailand | Not listed |
| Collins Scrabble WordsEnglish in most countries | Valid |
| Words with FriendsZynga word list | Not listed |
Word power: 31 / 100
Our own measure of how useful CENS is to know. It scores 6 from 4 tiles, takes 1 hook, and its letters make up 6.0% of the bag. How this number is calculated
Hooks for CENS
Front hooks — 0
None.
Back hooks — 1
censeChecked against OSPD, TWL, CSW, WWF.
How CENS scores
Face value of the 4 tiles in CENS, before any board multiplier.
Tiles you need
| Letter | Needed | In the bag |
|---|---|---|
| c | 1 | 2 |
| e | 1 | 12 |
| n | 1 | 6 |
| s | 1 | 4 |
Drawing exactly these 4 tiles as an opening rack: 1 in 6,808.
What does CENS mean in Scrabble?
noun
historicallegal
A fixed yearly payment made by a tenant to the owner of land, recognising the owner's right to the property.
Under old feudal and manorial law, a landholder who did not fully own his land paid a cens each year to the lord or owner as acknowledgment of the tenure. The payment was usually small and fixed, unlike rent that could vary with the value of use, and its purpose was to confirm the underlying ownership rather than to charge for the land's use.
How CENS is used
A specialist term from the history of French and related feudal law; met almost only in legal history and land-tenure studies.
- The register recorded the cens owed each year by every tenant on the estate.
- Failure to pay the cens could, in theory, cost a tenant his holding.
- Historians studied how the cens changed as feudal obligations weakened.
- The lord's steward collected the cens from villagers every autumn.
- Unlike ordinary rent, the cens stayed fixed for generations.
Written for this site: 1 meaning of CENS and 5 example sentences, not copied from a published dictionary.
Words starting with CENS
Showing 24 of 37 words that begin with CENS.
Words ending in CENS
2 words end in CENS. Useful as a back hook: play CENS onto a word already on the board.
Words with CENS inside
Showing 24 of 76 words that contain CENS somewhere in the middle. Words that start with CENS are listed separately above, so nothing is repeated.
Shorter words from the letters in CENS
Common questions about CENS
- Is CENS valid in Words with Friends?
- No. Words with Friends keeps its own list, separate from the Scrabble dictionaries, and CENS is not in it.
- How many points is CENS worth?
- CENS is worth 6 points in Scrabble and 8 points in Words with Friends.
- What does CENS mean?
- A fixed yearly payment made by a tenant to the owner of land, recognising the owner's right to the property.
- What letters can be added to CENS?
- CENS takes 1 hook: 0 in front and 1 at the end.
Every word you can build from the 4 letters of CENS:
Open CENS in the Word Finder