ZANJA is valid in Collins, not in North America — 21 points
It depends on the list you play by. ZANJA 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 21 points. Words with Friends does not accept it either.
Which word lists accept ZANJA?
| 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: 51 / 100
Our own measure of how useful ZANJA is to know. It scores 21 from 5 tiles, takes 1 hook, and its letters make up 5.2% of the bag. How this number is calculated
Hooks for ZANJA
Front hooks — 0
None.
Back hooks — 1
zanjasChecked against OSPD, TWL, CSW, WWF. Takes an S, so it hooks onto plurals easily.
How ZANJA scores
Face value of the 5 tiles in ZANJA, before any board multiplier.
Tiles you need
| Letter | Needed | In the bag |
|---|---|---|
| z | 1 | 1 |
| a | 2 | 9 |
| n | 1 | 6 |
| j | 1 | 1 |
Drawing exactly these 5 tiles as an opening rack: 1 in 348,553.
What stands out about ZANJA
- ZANJA scores 21 points, more than twice the average for a 5-letter word (9.2).
Counted from the four word lists we hold, not taken from anywhere else. How we calculate things
What does ZANJA mean in Scrabble?
noun
regionalhistorical
An irrigation ditch or canal, especially one built to carry water to fields or a settlement in Spanish-speaking regions or the historical Southwestern United States.
A zanja is a channel dug to move water from a river or spring out to farmland or a town, a technique brought to the Americas from Spain and still named with the Spanish word in places such as old California and New Mexico. Early Los Angeles, for instance, relied on a network of such channels for its water supply, and the word survives today mostly in local history and place names rather than everyday speech.
How ZANJA is used
Regional and historical term, used chiefly of irrigation systems in the Spanish-influenced Southwestern United States and Latin America.
- The old zanja once carried river water through the middle of town.
- Settlers dug a zanja to irrigate the orchard.
- Historians traced the route of the original zanja on a nineteenth-century map.
- Water from the zanja fed several small farms along its length.
- The dry bed of the zanja is now a walking path.
Written for this site: 1 meaning of ZANJA and 5 example sentences, not copied from a published dictionary.
Words starting with ZANJA
1 longer words begin with ZANJA.
Shorter words from the letters in ZANJA
Common questions about ZANJA
- Is ZANJA valid in Words with Friends?
- No. Words with Friends keeps its own list, separate from the Scrabble dictionaries, and ZANJA is not in it.
- How many points is ZANJA worth?
- ZANJA is worth 21 points in Scrabble and 24 points in Words with Friends.
- What does ZANJA mean?
- An irrigation ditch or canal, especially one built to carry water to fields or a settlement in Spanish-speaking regions or the historical Southwestern United States.
- What letters can be added to ZANJA?
- ZANJA takes 1 hook: 0 in front and 1 at the end.
Every word you can build from the 5 letters of ZANJA:
Open ZANJA in the Word Finder