Australian Words You Can Play in Scrabble
We checked Australian slang and vocabulary against the word list behind Unscramble AU. Here is what counts, and what doesn't.
Australian English has given the world some of its best-known words, but do they count in Scrabble? Many do. Collins Scrabble Words, the list used in Australian tournament play, includes a large amount of Australian and New Zealand vocabulary, and Scrabble Australia describes it as including World English, with spellings and variants from the US, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
To see how far that goes, we took the Australian slang and vocabulary that Unscramble AU highlights in its results and checked every entry against the word list the site uses. Of 47 entries, 44 are valid words in that list. The tables below show them all, with what each is worth on tile values alone.
Valid Australian words, grouped by theme
Everyday slang
| Word | Tile points | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ARVO | 7 | Afternoon (e.g. "see ya this arvo") |
| SERVO | 8 | Service station / petrol station |
| BREKKY | 19 | Breakfast |
| FOOTY | 11 | Australian Rules Football or rugby |
| BARBY | 12 | Barbecue (also spelled "barbie") |
| BARBIE | 10 | Barbecue |
| ESKY | 11 | Portable cooler / cool box (brand name) |
| TINNIE | 6 | A can of beer; also a small aluminium dinghy |
| STUBBY | 13 | A short bottle of beer (375 ml) |
| BOGAN | 8 | Uncultured or unsophisticated person |
| BLOKE | 11 | A man, a fellow |
| SHEILA | 9 | A woman (old-fashioned but widely known) |
| OCKER | 11 | A stereotypical uncultured Australian |
| LARRIKIN | 12 | A mischievous, irreverent person |
| GALAH | 9 | A fool or idiot; also a pink-and-grey cockatoo |
| DUNNY | 9 | Toilet or outhouse |
| MATE | 6 | Friend, buddy (used constantly in Australia) |
| SLEDGE | 8 | To verbally taunt an opponent (cricket slang) |
| HOWZAT | 21 | Cricket appeal ("How's that?") |
Praise and exclamations
| Word | Tile points | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| RIPPER | 10 | Excellent, fantastic |
| BEAUT | 7 | Beauty; something great |
| BEAUTY | 11 | Exclamation of delight ("You beauty!") |
| BONZER | 17 | Excellent, wonderful (old-fashioned) |
| GROUSE | 7 | Great, excellent (Victorian slang) |
| CORKER | 12 | Something outstanding or excellent |
| CRIKEY | 15 | Exclamation of surprise |
| STREWTH | 13 | Exclamation of surprise (corruption of "God's truth") |
| STOKED | 11 | Very pleased or excited |
| HEAPS | 10 | A lot; very much ("heaps good") |
| RECKON | 12 | Think, suppose ("I reckon so") |
| MOZZLE | 26 | Luck (from Yiddish, via Australian usage) |
Landscape and wildlife
| Word | Tile points | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| BILLABONG | 14 | An isolated pond left by a receding river |
| MULGA | 8 | Scrubby acacia bushland; the outback |
| MALLEE | 8 | A type of eucalyptus; semi-arid scrubland |
| BROLGA | 9 | A large grey Australian crane |
| QUOKKA | 23 | Small wallaby native to south-west WA |
| WOMBAT | 13 | Burrowing marsupial |
| ECHIDNA | 13 | Egg-laying spiny mammal |
| DINGO | 7 | Australian wild dog |
| KOOKABURRA | 20 | Laughing kingfisher bird |
Food
| Word | Tile points | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| VEGEMITE | 14 | Dark yeast extract spread (iconic Australian food) |
| LAMINGTON | 12 | Sponge cake coated in chocolate and coconut |
| PAVLOVA | 15 | Meringue dessert with cream and fruit |
| DAMPER | 11 | Traditional Australian soda bread cooked in coals |
Words from Aboriginal languages
Several of the words above entered English from Aboriginal languages. According to published dictionaries, GALAH and BROLGA come from Gamilaraay / Yuwaalaraay, QUOKKA comes from Nyungar, and BILLABONG comes from Wiradjuri. MULGA and MALLEE are also of Aboriginal origin, though the sources we checked give less detail on the exact language. They are good words to know because they use unusual letter combinations.
What about words that don't work?
Not every Australian expression is a Scrabble word. In the highlighted list on this site, ARGIE, ANZAC do not appear in the word list at all. ANZAC, for instance, is a proper noun and proper nouns are not allowed in standard Scrabble. Slang in everyday use is not automatically valid, and a word being valid in one edition of the dictionary does not mean it is valid in the next.
Unscramble AU can show highlighted Australian slang in its results. Always treat the word list as the authority for whether something can be played, and check the current Collins Scrabble Words for anything new.
High-scoring Australian plays
Among the words above, the biggest scorers on tile values alone are MOZZLE (26), QUOKKA (23), HOWZAT (21), KOOKABURRA (20), BREKKY (19). Long words like KOOKABURRA and VEGEMITE are difficult to play with a normal rack, but the shorter words (QUOKKA, LARRIKIN, GALAH) come up much more often.
- Use Q and K: QUOKKA carries a Q, a U and two Ks and is a rare way to use the Q.
- Add an S: 30 of the 44 words above also have a valid form ending in S in the word list, which makes them useful for hooking onto existing plays.
Practise with the unscrambler
Type a rack such as K O O K A B U R R A or B I L L A B O N G into Unscramble AU and it will show every valid word your letters can make, with Australian words highlighted.