Two-Letter Scrabble Words: The List and How to Use Them
By Mir Hadi ·
Two-letter words are the biggest single upgrade a casual Scrabble player can make. They let you lay a word parallel to one already on the board, scoring both directions at once, and they let you dump awkward tiles without wasting a turn.
The list, by the tile you’re stuck with
Roughly a hundred two-letter words are valid, depending on which dictionary your game uses. The 2-letter word list has every one in ours with Scrabble and Words With Friends points. Point values below are the standard English Scrabble ones (Q and Z 10, X and J 8, K 5), as listed in Wikipedia’s tile table. The ones players forget:
- Q: QI. That’s the whole list, and it’s enough: a Q on a triple-letter square scores 31 for a two-letter play.
- Z: ZA (pizza, informally). Z is worth 10, so ZA with the Z on a double-letter square is 21 points for two tiles.
- X: AX, EX, OX, XI, XU. X is worth 8, fits next to every vowel, and played parallel it scores in two directions, often for 40 or more.
- J and K: JO, KA, KI.
- Vowel pairs: AA, AE, AI, OE, OI. Useful when your rack is all vowels.
- No vowel at all: HM, MM, SH.
- V and C: nothing. There are no two-letter words with V or C in any list, so get those tiles into a longer word early.
A note on dictionaries: ENABLE, the open list most apps use and the base of ours, predates QI and ZA. We’ve added them along with the other modern additions (OK, EW, ZEN, EMOJI) so the finder matches what Scrabble and Words With Friends accept today. Tournament lists (NWL, Collins) still differ in a handful of words.
Parallel plays
Suppose HOME is on the board. Lay AXE directly beneath it so that A sits under M and X under E. You’ve made AXE across and two new words down, MA and EX, and all three score. With the X on a double-letter square that’s 39 points from three tiles: AXE 18, MA 4, EX 17. The Scrabble word finder lists what your rack can make, so you can spend your time hunting for the square.
Hooks
A hook adds one letter to the front or back of a word on the board. Two-letter knowledge makes hooks obvious: if AT is on the board, you can hook it to BAT, CAT, EAT, FAT or HAT while laying your own word down from the new letter. The word finder with a letter in Starts with shows every hook you can build.
Learning them
Don’t memorise alphabetically. Learn them by the tile you’re stuck with, as above. Knowing the gaps (no V, no C) is as useful as knowing the words.