Word power is a number from 0 to 100 that we put on every word page. It answers one question: how useful is this word to know — not how many points it scores. A 26-point word you will never assemble is worth less at the table than a short word that fits anywhere.
The number is ours. It is not part of Scrabble, of Words with Friends, or of any official rule set, and no dictionary will confirm it. We publish the formula here so that the number on a word page can be checked rather than believed.
The four parts
| Part | Weight | What it measures | Full marks at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Points per tile | 35% | Scrabble score divided by the number of letters | 4 points per tile |
| Hooks | 25% | How many single letters turn the word into another word, front or back | 8 hooks |
| Bingo potential | 20% | Whether the word uses a whole rack | exactly 7 letters |
| Tile availability | 20% | Average share of the bag taken by the word’s letters | 8% of the bag |
Each part is scored from 0 to 1, capped at 1, then multiplied by its weight. The four results are added and multiplied by 100. An eight-letter word scores half marks on bingo potential: it is still a bingo, but it has to lean on a letter already on the board.
Why these four, and why they pull against each other
Points per tile and tile availability are deliberately in tension. Rare letters are worth more and are harder to draw; common letters are easy to draw and pay little. A measure built on score alone would simply repeat the score in different words, and the word page already shows the score twice.
Hooks carry a quarter of the weight because flexibility is what decides whether a word ever reaches the board. A word that takes an S, or that grows from a word already played, gets used; a word that fits nowhere sits in memory unused.
What the number ignores — on purpose
- Board multipliers. Every square premium depends on the game in front of you, and we do not know that game.
- Which list you play by. Word power says nothing about validity. That question is answered separately, list by list, at the top of every word page.
- How often the word appears in books or speech. Frequency is a property of English, not of the game.
- Words you cannot play at all. A word that no list accepts gets no Word power score and no hooks section: advice about a move that cannot be made is worse than no advice.
The same word, two games
Word power is calculated from the Scrabble score and the Scrabble tile bag. Words with Friends uses different tile values and a different bag, so the number would come out differently there. We show one number rather than two because the question — is this word worth learning — is answered well enough by one.
Hooks are counted against the word lists you have switched on. If you turn a list off in the dictionary settings, the hook count on a word page changes, and the Word power number changes with it.
Look up a word to see the number in place, or read how the word lists differ.