50 Two-Letter Scrabble Words That Changed How I Play

I lost a tournament game by 4 points because I did not know QI was a valid Scrabble word. Four points. The Q was sitting on a triple-letter square and I passed it up because I thought you needed QU- to play Q. That loss sent me down a rabbit hole of two-letter words that completely transformed my game.

Two-letter words are the most underrated weapon in Scrabble. They let you play parallel to existing words, squeeze into tight board positions, and dump awkward tiles while still scoring. Competitive players memorize all of them. You should too.

The Essential Two-Letter Words

There are 107 valid two-letter words in the TWL06 (North American Scrabble dictionary) and 127 in SOWPODS (international). Here are the 50 you need to know first, grouped by how useful they are in actual games.

The High-Value Plays

QI (11 pts) – a Chinese concept of life force. The only Q-without-U two-letter word. Memorize this one first. ZA (11 pts) – short for pizza. Perfect for dumping a Z. JO (9 pts) – a Scottish term of endearment. XI (9 pts) – a Greek letter. Great for getting rid of X. XU (9 pts) – a Vietnamese monetary unit. Another X-dumper. AX (9 pts) – a cutting tool, also playable as the reverse XA… wait, no. AX only.

The Parallel Play Essentials

These words make parallel plays possible – laying a word alongside an existing one and scoring for every two-letter combination formed:

AA (2 pts) – a type of volcanic lava. AB (4 pts) – an abdominal muscle. AD (3 pts) – an advertisement. AE (2 pts) – a Scottish word for “one.” AG (3 pts) – short for agriculture. AH (5 pts) – an exclamation. AI (2 pts) – a three-toed sloth. AL (2 pts) – an East Indian tree. AM (4 pts) – present tense of “be.” AN (2 pts) – indefinite article. AR (2 pts) – the letter R. AS (2 pts) – to such a degree. AT (2 pts) – in the position of. AW (5 pts) – an exclamation.

The Vowel Dumpers

Stuck with too many vowels? These save you:

OE (2 pts) – a whirlwind off the Faeroe Islands. OI (2 pts) – used to get attention (British). OU (2 pts) – a Hawaiian bird. OO (2 pts) – valid in SOWPODS only. EAU is not valid as a two-letter word, but OE, OI, and OU are all real plays that dump vowels while keeping your consonants.

The Consonant Helpers

SH (5 pts) – used to request silence. HM (7 pts) – an interjection. MM (6 pts) – an interjection expressing satisfaction. These let you play consonant-heavy combinations when your rack is stuck.

How Two-Letter Words Win Games

The real power of two-letter words is not playing them alone. It is using them to enable longer words. When you lay a 7-letter word parallel to an existing word, every perpendicular connection needs to form a valid two-letter word. If you know all 107, the board opens up in ways other players cannot see.

Example: there is an S on the board with nothing above it. Most players see a dead zone. But you know SH is valid, so you can start a word with H directly above that S. That H starts your 7-letter bingo for 50+ bonus points. The two-letter word knowledge created the opening.

Study Strategy

Do not try to memorize all 107 at once. Start with the high-value plays (QI, ZA, JO, XI, XU). Then learn the full A- list (AA through AW). Then add the vowel-heavy ones. Within a week of casual study, you will have the most useful 50 down cold.

Practice with our Word Unscrambler and Dictionary Checker to verify which words are valid in your preferred dictionary.