TENAIL is a valid Scrabble word — 6 points
Yes. TENAIL is accepted by every list we check: Collins, the North American lists and Words with Friends. It scores 6 points in Scrabble and 8 in Words with Friends.
Which word lists accept TENAIL?
| 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: 31 / 100
Our own measure of how useful TENAIL is to know. It scores 6 from 6 tiles, takes 1 hook, and its letters make up 7.7% of the bag. How this number is calculated
Hooks for TENAIL
Front hooks — 0
None.
Back hooks — 1
tenailsChecked against OSPD, TWL, CSW, WWF. Takes an S, so it hooks onto plurals easily.
How TENAIL scores
Face value of the 6 tiles in TENAIL, before any board multiplier.
Tiles you need
| Letter | Needed | In the bag |
|---|---|---|
| t | 1 | 6 |
| e | 1 | 12 |
| n | 1 | 6 |
| a | 1 | 9 |
| i | 1 | 9 |
| l | 1 | 4 |
Drawing exactly these 6 tiles as an opening rack: 1 in 8,517.
What stands out about TENAIL
- The same 6 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 TENAIL mean in Scrabble?
noun
historical
A low outwork built in the main ditch of a fortification, between two bastions, also spelled tenaille.
A tenail was placed in the ditch that ran around a fortress, in front of the main wall or curtain and between two projecting bastions, so defenders could fire along the ditch and slow an attacker trying to cross it. Military engineers of the age of star-shaped fortresses, such as Vauban, treated the tenail as a standard part of a well-designed defensive layout. The term belongs to a specialised vocabulary of fortification that mostly survives now in histories of siege warfare.
How TENAIL is used
A historical fortification term, met mainly in accounts of siege warfare and older military engineering texts.
- Engineers built a tenail between the two bastions to cover the ditch.
- The old plans of the fortress marked a tenail facing the river approach.
- Cannon mounted on the tenail could sweep the length of the moat.
- Historians describe how a tenail slowed attackers crossing the ditch.
- The ruined tenail was barely visible beneath centuries of overgrowth.
Written for this site: 1 meaning of TENAIL and 5 example sentences, not copied from a published dictionary.
Anagrams of TENAIL
The 6 tiles of TENAIL in a different order — 2 found.
Words starting with TENAIL
5 longer words begin with TENAIL.
Shorter words from the letters in TENAIL
Showing 40 of 114. See all in the Word Finder
Common questions about TENAIL
- Is TENAIL valid in Words with Friends?
- Yes. Words with Friends accepts TENAIL, where it scores 8 points. That game keeps its own list, separate from the Scrabble dictionaries.
- How many points is TENAIL worth?
- TENAIL is worth 6 points in Scrabble and 8 points in Words with Friends.
- What does TENAIL mean?
- A low outwork built in the main ditch of a fortification, between two bastions, also spelled tenaille.
- What letters can be added to TENAIL?
- TENAIL takes 1 hook: 0 in front and 1 at the end.
Every word you can build from the 6 letters of TENAIL:
Open TENAIL in the Word Finder