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amazon

/ˈæm.əˌzɑn/
noun

AMAZON scores 17 points in Scrabble, and the Z alone supplies 10 of them; the word is valid in Collins, NWL2023 and ENABLE.

NWL Collins ENABLE

Noun 3 meanings

  1. A tall, strong, athletic woman.

    “Although the evidence for real Amazons is thin, women athletes are often dubbed amazons.”

  2. A fairy chess piece which combines the moves of the queen and the knight.

  3. An amazon parrot.

Definitions: Wiktionary (CC BY-SA) via Kaikki/Wiktextract

Where it comes from

Etymology

From Amazon, from Ancient Greek Ἀμαζών (Amazṓn).

AMAZON is a six-letter word with three jobs: a tall, strong, athletic woman, a fairy chess piece, and a type of parrot. It sits at rank 2,653 in the frequency list. Its odd letter mix, with two As and a Z, makes it a quiet source of points on the board.

AMAZON in numbers

  • AMAZON has six letters: A, M, A, Z, O, N.
  • Its base Scrabble score is 17, and the Z is worth 10 of those points.
  • It appears in Collins, NWL2023 and ENABLE.
  • No other word uses the same letters, and no valid word sits one letter away.

What does AMAZON mean as a word?

The everyday sense is a tall, strong, athletic woman. Chess problem fans know a second meaning: a fairy piece that moves as both a queen and a knight. A third sense names the amazon parrot.

The chess piece is the most unusual of the three. It never appears in standard games, so a puzzle solver is the person most likely to meet it.

How does AMAZON score, and what plays beside it?

A is worth 1, M is worth 3, Z is worth 10, O is worth 1 and N is worth 1, so the tiles add up to 17 before any bonus square. Z is just over half the total, which means a double-letter square under the Z adds 10 extra points, far more than any other tile in the word.

Do not hunt for tricks with the letters: AMAZON has no anagrams and no one-letter neighbours. The closest sound-alikes are rhymes, such as HORIZON, BLAZON and EMBLAZON, which end in the same -ZON tail. Those help in rhyming puzzles but not in tile racks, and you should check your game’s word list before trying any of them.

Rhymes with amazon

All rhymes
  • HORIZON19
  • BLAZON17
  • GLAMAZON20
  • AZON13
  • EMBLAZON21
  • GOHONZON21
  • CABEZON20
  • BORAZON18
  • GAZON15
  • MENAZON18
  • SCAZON17
  • STRAMAZON20

Questions people ask

Is AMAZON a valid Scrabble word?
Yes. AMAZON is accepted in Collins, NWL2023 and ENABLE, and it scores 17 points on tiles alone. The Z is worth 10 of that total, so the word rewards a premium square placed under that single tile.
Does AMAZON have any anagrams?
No. AMAZON has zero anagrams and zero valid one-letter neighbours, so no other word can be built from its six letters. That makes it a one-off play, with no rack-balancing alternative.
How common is the word AMAZON?
AMAZON ranks 2,653 in word frequency, with a count of 2,984 and a Zipf score of 4.55. That puts it in everyday vocabulary, though well below short staples such as PLAY or HEAD.

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