PERN is valid in Collins, not in North America — 6 points
It depends on the list you play by. PERN 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 PERN?
| 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: 32 / 100
Our own measure of how useful PERN is to know. It scores 6 from 4 tiles, takes 1 hook, and its letters make up 6.5% of the bag. How this number is calculated
Hooks for PERN
Front hooks — 0
None.
Back hooks — 1
pernsChecked against OSPD, TWL, CSW, WWF. Takes an S, so it hooks onto plurals easily.
How PERN scores
Face value of the 4 tiles in PERN, before any board multiplier.
Tiles you need
| Letter | Needed | In the bag |
|---|---|---|
| p | 1 | 2 |
| e | 1 | 12 |
| r | 1 | 6 |
| n | 1 | 6 |
Drawing exactly these 4 tiles as an opening rack: 1 in 4,538.
What does PERN mean in Scrabble?
noun
zoologyBritish
A honey buzzard, a broad-winged bird of prey that feeds mainly on the nests of wasps and bees.
The pern is named for its habit of circling and gliding in wide, spiralling flight while it searches open country for insect nests to raid. British birdwatchers use the name pern as a shorter alternative to honey buzzard, and the bird's spiralling flight even lent a verb, to pern, meaning to circle upward like the bird, a usage famously borrowed by the poet Yeats. The everyday sighting, though, is simply of the bird itself.
How PERN is used
A birdwatching term for the honey buzzard, chiefly British; rare outside ornithology and poetry.
- A pern circled slowly over the beech wood before dropping to a wasp nest.
- Birders gathered at the coast each autumn to watch the pern migrate south.
- The guidebook showed the pern's narrow head and long, barred tail.
- Farmers welcomed the pern for clearing wasp nests from the hedgerows.
- The poem borrowed the pern's spiralling flight as an image of the turning years.
Written for this site: 1 meaning of PERN and 5 example sentences, not copied from a published dictionary.
Words starting with PERN
23 longer words begin with PERN.
Words ending in PERN
1 words end in PERN. Useful as a back hook: play PERN onto a word already on the board.
Words with PERN inside
Showing 24 of 79 words that contain PERN somewhere in the middle. Words that start with PERN are listed separately above, so nothing is repeated.
Shorter words from the letters in PERN
Common questions about PERN
- Is PERN valid in Words with Friends?
- No. Words with Friends keeps its own list, separate from the Scrabble dictionaries, and PERN is not in it.
- How many points is PERN worth?
- PERN is worth 6 points in Scrabble and 8 points in Words with Friends.
- What does PERN mean?
- A honey buzzard, a broad-winged bird of prey that feeds mainly on the nests of wasps and bees.
- What letters can be added to PERN?
- PERN takes 1 hook: 0 in front and 1 at the end.
Every word you can build from the 4 letters of PERN:
Open PERN in the Word Finder