FOMES is valid in Collins, not in North America — 10 points
It depends on the list you play by. FOMES 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 10 points. Words with Friends does not accept it either.
Which word lists accept FOMES?
| 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 FOMES is to know. It scores 10 from 5 tiles, takes 0 hooks, and its letters make up 5.6% of the bag. How this number is calculated
Hooks for FOMES
No single letter turns FOMES into another word.
How FOMES scores
Face value of the 5 tiles in FOMES, before any board multiplier.
Tiles you need
| Letter | Needed | In the bag |
|---|---|---|
| f | 1 | 2 |
| o | 1 | 8 |
| m | 1 | 2 |
| e | 1 | 12 |
| s | 1 | 4 |
Drawing exactly these 5 tiles as an opening rack: 1 in 49,015.
What does FOMES mean in Scrabble?
noun
medical
An object or material capable of carrying and passing on infection.
Fomes is the older Latin-derived term used before fomite became standard, and the two words now overlap almost completely even though fomes came first. A doorknob, a shared towel or a coin can serve as a fomes if it holds a pathogen long enough for someone else to pick it up. The word survives mainly as a historical curiosity in medical writing, since fomite has taken its place in most current textbooks.
How FOMES is used
Countable; plural fomites. Chiefly historical medical usage.
- A shared towel can act as a fomes for the infection.
- The word fomes predates the now more common fomite.
- Old medical writing calls any such object a fomes.
- A doorknob touched by many hands is a classic fomes.
- The lecture used fomes where a modern text would say fomite.
Written for this site: 1 meaning of FOMES and 5 example sentences, not copied from a published dictionary.
Shorter words from the letters in FOMES
Common questions about FOMES
- Is FOMES valid in Words with Friends?
- No. Words with Friends keeps its own list, separate from the Scrabble dictionaries, and FOMES is not in it.
- How many points is FOMES worth?
- FOMES is worth 10 points in Scrabble and 11 points in Words with Friends.
- What does FOMES mean?
- An object or material capable of carrying and passing on infection.
- What letters can be added to FOMES?
- No single letter can be added to FOMES to make another word.
Every word you can build from the 5 letters of FOMES:
Open FOMES in the Word Finder