Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
C is the 12th most common letter in English, appearing in about 2.8% of text. It has an unusual status: in English spelling, C represents two completely different sounds, a “hard C” (like K in CAT) and a “soft C” (like S in CITY). The split generally follows the vowel that follows — soft before E, I, Y; hard elsewhere.
In Scrabble, C is worth 3 points with 2 tiles in the bag. C is a workhorse consonant for high-value plays: CZAR, CWMS, CHEZ, COZY, CRUX, and CHUTZPAH all score well. Note that the rare 3-letter CWM (a steep-walled valley) is one of the few valid English words with no standard vowel.
Productive C-prefixes include CO- (together — COEXIST, COWORKER), CON- (with — CONNECT, CONFIRM), COM- (together — COMPILE, COMBAT), and CIRCUM- (around — CIRCUMSTANCE, CIRCUMNAVIGATE). These alone generate thousands of entries.
Our dictionary lists 25,025 English words beginning with C. That is roughly 7.0% of all the words in our dictionary. C is the 12th most common letter in English (about 2.8% of written text).
At 41 points, CHIQUICHIQUIS leads the C-starting list in Scrabble scoring. Premium squares can multiply this further; the C tile alone is worth 3 points.
The shortest we show is CH at just 2 letters. In Scrabble, short C-words are dump plays: you clear a tile onto a premium square, collect the bonus, and keep your rack flexible.