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304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
B is the 20th most common letter in English, accounting for only about 1.5% of written text. Despite that low frequency, B-words make up a disproportionate share of common vocabulary: BE, BY, BIG, BOY, BOOK, BACK. These short function words and everyday nouns appear constantly.
In Scrabble, B is worth 3 points, placing it in the second tier. There are 2 B tiles in the bag. Strategic B plays tend to focus on the handful of short high-value words: BIZ, BUZZ, BOZO, BAJU, BYRL. When you draw a B with a Z or J, the scoring potential jumps sharply.
B-words carry a number of productive prefixes: BE- (become/cover — BEFALL, BEWARE), BI- (two — BICYCLE, BILATERAL), BIO- (life — BIOLOGY, BIOMASS), and BY- (near / secondary — BYPASS, BYWAY). Latin and Germanic origins roughly balance here.
We have 15,193 B-initial entries, which is about 4.2% of the full word list. That’s roughly proportional to B’s text-frequency of 1.5% (ranked 20th among the 26 letters).
BAZZAZZES takes the top spot at 47 Scrabble points using standard TWL values — and that’s before any premium squares. The raw B tile is worth 3 points.
At 2 letters, BA is the minimum-length B-initial word in our list. Short words are the bread of Scrabble — they make premium squares easy to reach and let you save longer rack plays for bingos.