KOBAN is valid in Collins, not in North America — 11 points
It depends on the list you play by. KOBAN 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 11 points. Words with Friends does not accept it either.
Which word lists accept KOBAN?
| 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: 39 / 100
Our own measure of how useful KOBAN is to know. It scores 11 from 5 tiles, takes 2 hooks, and its letters make up 5.2% of the bag. How this number is calculated
Hooks for KOBAN
Checked against OSPD, TWL, CSW, WWF. Takes an S, so it hooks onto plurals easily.
How KOBAN scores
Face value of the 5 tiles in KOBAN, before any board multiplier.
Tiles you need
| Letter | Needed | In the bag |
|---|---|---|
| k | 1 | 1 |
| o | 1 | 8 |
| b | 1 | 2 |
| a | 1 | 9 |
| n | 1 | 6 |
Drawing exactly these 5 tiles as an opening rack: 1 in 87,138.
What does KOBAN mean in Scrabble?
noun
historical
An old oval-shaped gold coin used as currency in feudal Japan.
The koban was struck and stamped by hand rather than machine, which is why surviving coins vary slightly in size and weight. It circulated for centuries before Japan moved to a Western-style currency in the late nineteenth century, so a koban now mainly turns up in museums and coin collections rather than in everyday trade.
How KOBAN is used
Used mostly by historians, collectors and museum descriptions of old Japanese money.
- The museum case held a single koban under glass.
- A koban this well preserved fetches a high price at auction.
- Merchants once weighed gold by the koban rather than counting coins one by one.
- The novel describes a chest of koban hidden beneath the floorboards.
- Collectors argue over whether a chipped koban still counts as genuine.
Written for this site: 1 meaning of KOBAN and 5 example sentences, not copied from a published dictionary.
Words starting with KOBAN
3 longer words begin with KOBAN.
Shorter words from the letters in KOBAN
Common questions about KOBAN
- Is KOBAN valid in Words with Friends?
- No. Words with Friends keeps its own list, separate from the Scrabble dictionaries, and KOBAN is not in it.
- How many points is KOBAN worth?
- KOBAN is worth 11 points in Scrabble and 13 points in Words with Friends.
- What does KOBAN mean?
- An old oval-shaped gold coin used as currency in feudal Japan.
- What letters can be added to KOBAN?
- KOBAN takes 2 hooks: 0 in front and 2 at the end.
Every word you can build from the 5 letters of KOBAN:
Open KOBAN in the Word Finder