Using the letter Q in Scrabble can be tricky, because in the English language almost all words with Q have the letter U following it. This becomes a big problem for players who do not have an U tile when they need it. In such situations the only way to win is to know Q words without U. The game only contains four U tiles and one Q tile.

This list contains words from the TWL dictionary.

Most useful words with Q and no U

The only words with Q and no U a beginning player needs to learn are QI, QAT, QAID, QADI and their plurals.
 
 
The rest of the forty-eight English words with a Q not followed by U don't come up very often. Statistics show that some words are more playable than others. Memorize these four most usable short words. Learning words by playability is an efficient way to raise your score.

Shortest Q word without U

3 letter Q words without U

4 letter Q words without U

5 letter Q words without U

6 letter Q words without U

7 letter Q words without U

8 letter Q words without U

Longest word with Q and no U

How to use words with Q and no U?

Experienced Scrabble players will often face a dilemma where they have no U tiles, but need to get rid of the Q tile. In this situation the only way to not get stuck with the Q tile until the end of the game is to play words with Q but no U. Remember the words in this list and use them when all U tiles are gone.

The best way to use Q without U words is to play 2 letter words like Qi. Qi is worth 11 points and it is often used in tournaments. If you won't play this word it is likely that your opponent will. Strategically it makes sense to play the Q tile as soon as possible.

Words with U

Letter U frequencies: 26.55% of words contain U, 2.5% of words(4687) contain UU, 2.92% of words(5485) start with U, 0.12% of words(222) end with U.

Words with Q

Letter Q frequencies: 1.44% of words(2702) contain Q, 0.01% of words(12) contain QQ, 0.47% of words(887) start with Q, 0.0037% of words(7) end with Q.

Useful word lists