cancer C₃A₁N₁C₃E₁R₁

CANCER has a serious primary sense, plus a figurative one for something damaging that spreads through a system. For a word game, the interesting part is the spelling. Two Cs bracket a central ANCE, and swapping one tile produces a long family of valid relatives.

CANCER in brief

• The six letters are C, A, N, C, E, R.
• Tiles total 10 points, and the twin Cs carry 6 of them.
• Eight neighbours exist, including CANTER, CANKER and CANNER.
• Frequency rank is 1,205 with a count of 23,935; no anagram is valid.

Which words are one tile away from CANCER?

The family is large. CANCEL changes the last letter, DANCER and LANCER change the first, and CANTER, CANKER and CANNER change the fourth. Two more neighbours complete the count of eight.

Most of those are ordinary words, so a CANCER rack rarely leaves you stuck for a hook.

The middle -ANCE block stays fixed across CANCER, DANCER and LANCER, so only the first tile varies. That makes the three easy to keep apart: C, D or L at the front is the whole decision.

How does CANCER score, tile by tile?

C3, A1, N1, C3, E1 and R1 add up to 10. The two Cs are the only heavy tiles, which means a double-letter square on either one gives 3 extra points.

Swap in the neighbours and the totals shift: CANCEL also reaches 10, because L is worth the same as R, while DANCER drops to 9 since D replaces a 3-point C with a 2-point tile.

A triple-word square would multiply all 10 points by three for 30, which beats any single-letter boost the Cs can offer.

Does CANCER suit a quick Scrabble play?

Two Cs is a real constraint on a seven-tile rack, so the word is harder to build than most of its neighbours. Among six-letter words, 1,793 begin with C and 2,039 end in R. Check your game’s word list before trying CANKER or CANNER, since both are less familiar.