Why the X Tile Is Worth Learning
Drawing an X can feel like a setback, but it's one of the higher-value tiles in the game: 8 points in both standard Scrabble and Words With Friends. (The two games share almost all their letter values — the one real exception is J, worth 8 in Scrabble and 10 in Words With Friends. X isn't part of that difference, despite what you may have read elsewhere.)
X words are genuinely rare — in our own English dictionary, only 136 out of 172,823 words start with X, a little under 0.1%. That scarcity is exactly why they're worth memorising a handful of: on a double or triple letter square, an 8-point tile turns into a real swing in the score.
Short X Words: XI, XU, and XIS
XI, the 14th letter of the Greek alphabet, is the word most players reach for first — and it's genuinely useful for parallel plays, letting you score in two directions at once with a single tile. Less well known: XU is also a valid two-letter X word (a monetary subunit used in Vietnam), giving you a second short option depending on what letters you're holding.
XIS, the plural of XI, extends your options a little further if you've got an S to spare — useful for hooking onto an existing XI already on the board.
Mid-Length X Words for Puzzles
Once the board opens up, mid-length words give you more flexibility than short hooks without needing a long, awkward rack. XYST (a covered walkway used for exercise in ancient Greece and Rome) and XENON (the noble gas) are both solid five- and six-letter options. XERIC (describing an extremely dry habitat) and XYLEM (the water-conducting tissue in plants) round out a useful set — all genuinely playable, not just recognisable science-class vocabulary.
Long X Words and Bingo Plays
Seven-letter Bingo plays — using all the tiles in your rack for a 50-point bonus in Scrabble (35 points in Words With Friends) — are rarer with X than with more common letters, but they exist, and two of them are words you likely already know: XANTHAN, as in xanthan gum, the thickener found in countless food products, and XYLITOL, the sugar substitute common in sugar-free gum. Both are exactly seven letters and confirmed valid. XIPHOID, the sword-shaped lower part of the sternum, is another solid seven-letter option if you're working with medical or anatomical vocabulary.
Finding X Words with UnscramblWords
Rather than trying to recall this list from memory mid-game, our "Starts With" filter does the work directly: enter your rack, filter for words beginning with X, and you'll see every valid match rather than guessing whether an unfamiliar word is actually playable. The tool works the same way across all 10 supported languages, so the same approach applies whether you're playing in English, Spanish, French, or any of the others — each checked against that language's own dictionary rather than a translated English list.
(Reviewed by the UnscramblWords Team)