SABIR is a valid Scrabble word — 7 points
Yes. SABIR is accepted by every list we check: Collins, the North American lists and Words with Friends. It scores 7 points in Scrabble and 8 in Words with Friends.
Which word lists accept SABIR?
| 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: 30 / 100
Our own measure of how useful SABIR is to know. It scores 7 from 5 tiles, takes 1 hook, and its letters make up 6.0% of the bag. How this number is calculated
Hooks for SABIR
Front hooks — 0
None.
Back hooks — 1
sabirsChecked against OSPD, TWL, CSW, WWF. Takes an S, so it hooks onto plurals easily.
How SABIR scores
Face value of the 5 tiles in SABIR, before any board multiplier.
Tiles you need
| Letter | Needed | In the bag |
|---|---|---|
| s | 1 | 4 |
| a | 1 | 9 |
| b | 1 | 2 |
| i | 1 | 9 |
| r | 1 | 6 |
Drawing exactly these 5 tiles as an opening rack: 1 in 19,364.
What stands out about SABIR
- The same 5 tiles also spell 3 other words, so the rack is worth re-reading before you play it.
Counted from the four word lists we hold, not taken from anywhere else. How we calculate things
What does SABIR mean in Scrabble?
noun
historical
A simplified trading language, based mainly on French, Italian, Spanish and Arabic, once spoken by sailors and merchants around Mediterranean ports.
Sabir grew up over centuries wherever traders, sailors and travellers from different Mediterranean lands needed to strike deals without sharing a single native language, borrowing words and simplified grammar from whichever tongues were most useful at each port. It is the best-known example of what linguists call a lingua franca, a term that originally referred to sabir itself before coming to mean any shared trade language more generally. Because sabir was never anyone's first language and was learned purely for practical use, it had no fixed spelling and varied from harbour to harbour. The language faded away as European colonial languages and standardised trade languages took over its role in the region.
How SABIR is used
A historical and linguistic term, met mainly in accounts of Mediterranean trade and in studies of pidgin and contact languages.
- Sailors from a dozen ports could bargain in sabir without sharing a common native tongue.
- Historians traced words in sabir back to Italian, Spanish, French and Arabic roots.
- The old ship's log recorded a few phrases of sabir used to haggle over cargo.
- Linguists study sabir as an early example of a Mediterranean trade language.
- By the nineteenth century, sabir had largely disappeared from daily use in the ports.
Written for this site: 1 meaning of SABIR and 5 example sentences, not copied from a published dictionary.
Anagrams of SABIR
The 5 tiles of SABIR in a different order — 3 found.
Words starting with SABIR
1 longer words begin with SABIR.
Shorter words from the letters in SABIR
Showing 40 of 44. See all in the Word Finder
Common questions about SABIR
- Is SABIR valid in Words with Friends?
- Yes. Words with Friends accepts SABIR, where it scores 8 points. That game keeps its own list, separate from the Scrabble dictionaries.
- How many points is SABIR worth?
- SABIR is worth 7 points in Scrabble and 8 points in Words with Friends.
- What does SABIR mean?
- A simplified trading language, based mainly on French, Italian, Spanish and Arabic, once spoken by sailors and merchants around Mediterranean ports.
- What letters can be added to SABIR?
- SABIR takes 1 hook: 0 in front and 1 at the end.
Every word you can build from the 5 letters of SABIR:
Open SABIR in the Word Finder