SOFAR is a valid Scrabble word — 8 points
Yes. SOFAR is accepted by every list we check: Collins, the North American lists and Words with Friends. It scores 8 points in Scrabble and 8 in Words with Friends.
Which word lists accept SOFAR?
| 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: 32 / 100
Our own measure of how useful SOFAR is to know. It scores 8 from 5 tiles, takes 1 hook, and its letters make up 5.8% of the bag. How this number is calculated
Hooks for SOFAR
Front hooks — 0
None.
Back hooks — 1
sofarsChecked against OSPD, TWL, CSW, WWF. Takes an S, so it hooks onto plurals easily.
How SOFAR scores
Face value of the 5 tiles in SOFAR, before any board multiplier.
Tiles you need
| Letter | Needed | In the bag |
|---|---|---|
| s | 1 | 4 |
| o | 1 | 8 |
| f | 1 | 2 |
| a | 1 | 9 |
| r | 1 | 6 |
Drawing exactly these 5 tiles as an opening rack: 1 in 21,785.
What stands out about SOFAR
- The same 5 tiles also spell 2 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 SOFAR mean in Scrabble?
noun
technicalnautical
A system that uses a deep layer of the ocean, which carries sound over huge distances with little loss of energy, to detect and pinpoint an underwater explosion or a survivor's distress signal.
The name sofar began as an acronym for sound fixing and ranging, and it settled into ordinary technical vocabulary much the way sonar and radar did before it. A sofar channel is a layer deep in the ocean where sound waves bend back toward it rather than escaping upward or downward, letting a signal travel thousands of kilometres with little loss of energy. Navies and oceanographers built sofar stations along coastlines specifically to catch the sound of an explosive charge dropped by a downed pilot or a lost ship, then to work out its position from the time delay recorded at three or more listening posts. Outside oceanography and naval history, sofar rarely appears in everyday writing.
How SOFAR is used
Technical term from oceanography and naval history, naming both the deep sound channel and the listening system built around it.
- Engineers strung a sofar hydrophone array along the coast to track distress signals.
- The downed pilot triggered a small charge so sofar stations could fix his position.
- Sound waves in a sofar channel can travel across an entire ocean basin.
- Researchers mapped the depth of the sofar channel in several major oceans.
- A sofar buoy recorded the underwater blast within seconds of detonation.
Written for this site: 1 meaning of SOFAR and 5 example sentences, not copied from a published dictionary.
Anagrams of SOFAR
The 5 tiles of SOFAR in a different order — 2 found.
Words starting with SOFAR
1 longer words begin with SOFAR.
Words ending in SOFAR
1 words end in SOFAR. Useful as a back hook: play SOFAR onto a word already on the board.
Shorter words from the letters in SOFAR
Common questions about SOFAR
- Is SOFAR valid in Words with Friends?
- Yes. Words with Friends accepts SOFAR, where it scores 8 points. That game keeps its own list, separate from the Scrabble dictionaries.
- How many points is SOFAR worth?
- SOFAR is worth 8 points in Scrabble and 8 points in Words with Friends.
- What does SOFAR mean?
- A system that uses a deep layer of the ocean, which carries sound over huge distances with little loss of energy, to detect and pinpoint an underwater explosion or a survivor's distress signal.
- What letters can be added to SOFAR?
- SOFAR takes 1 hook: 0 in front and 1 at the end.
Every word you can build from the 5 letters of SOFAR:
Open SOFAR in the Word Finder