XOANA is valid in Collins, not in North America — 12 points
It depends on the list you play by. XOANA 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 12 points. Words with Friends does accept it.
Which word lists accept XOANA?
| 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 | Valid |
Word power: 38 / 100
Our own measure of how useful XOANA is to know. It scores 12 from 5 tiles, takes 0 hooks, and its letters make up 6.6% of the bag. How this number is calculated
Hooks for XOANA
No single letter turns XOANA into another word.
How XOANA scores
Face value of the 5 tiles in XOANA, before any board multiplier.
Tiles you need
| Letter | Needed | In the bag |
|---|---|---|
| x | 1 | 1 |
| o | 1 | 8 |
| a | 2 | 9 |
| n | 1 | 6 |
Drawing exactly these 5 tiles as an opening rack: 1 in 43,569.
What does XOANA mean in Scrabble?
noun
historical
Primitive wooden cult images of a Greek god or goddess, kept in a temple and sometimes carried through the streets during festivals.
Ancient writers describe xoana as roughly shaped wooden figures, some said to have fallen from the sky or been made by a god rather than by human hands, that stood in temples long before Greek sculptors began carving naturalistic figures from marble or bronze. Because wood decays, no confirmed xoana survive intact, and most of what is known about them comes from later written descriptions, temple inventories and religious legend rather than from the objects themselves. Historians of Greek religion use the word to mark the earliest known stage of cult sculpture, before more realistic figures took over.
How XOANA is used
A specialist term in the history of Greek art and religion, met chiefly in academic writing rather than everyday speech.
- The temple guarded several xoana said to have been sent down by the gods themselves.
- Ancient sources describe processions in which the xoana were carried through the city.
- No wooden xoana have survived intact from antiquity.
- Scholars treat the xoana as evidence for the earliest phase of Greek cult sculpture.
- The priestess was responsible for dressing the xoana each year during the festival.
Written for this site: 1 meaning of XOANA and 5 example sentences, not copied from a published dictionary.
Shorter words from the letters in XOANA
Common questions about XOANA
- Is XOANA valid in Words with Friends?
- Yes. Words with Friends accepts XOANA, where it scores 13 points. That game keeps its own list, separate from the Scrabble dictionaries.
- How many points is XOANA worth?
- XOANA is worth 12 points in Scrabble and 13 points in Words with Friends.
- What does XOANA mean?
- Primitive wooden cult images of a Greek god or goddess, kept in a temple and sometimes carried through the streets during festivals.
- What letters can be added to XOANA?
- No single letter can be added to XOANA to make another word.
Every word you can build from the 5 letters of XOANA:
Open XOANA in the Word Finder