paul P₃A₁U₁L₁

Most people know Paul as a name, but in lower case it is a word too: an old Italian silver coin, also spelled paolo. Its frequency count of 58,529 comes from the name, not the coin. Only Collins lists it, so it matters which dictionary your game uses.

PAUL at a glance

• Four letters: P, A, U, L.
• Base score 6, with P worth 3.
• Only Collins accepts it; NWL2023 and ENABLE do not.
• Anagram: PULA; ten neighbours, including HAUL, MAUL and PAIL.

Is PAUL a valid Scrabble word?

Only in Collins. A North American game running on NWL2023 or ENABLE will reject it, and you lose the turn.

The meaning is narrow, an old Italian silver coin, so it appears almost only in word games. Many players assume it is only a name, which can surprise a Collins opponent.

That narrowness is the point of the entry: the coin is the only reason the lower-case spelling exists in Collins at all.

What are the neighbours and the anagram?

PULA uses the same four tiles and also scores 6. The neighbours include HAUL, SAUL, PALL, MAUL, PAIL and CAUL. HAUL scores 7, since H is worth 4, and the rest score 6 like PAUL.

Neighbours rhyme with PAUL in spelling too: HAUL, MAUL, OVERHAUL and SHAUL end in the same -AUL tail.

In a pattern search, P-A-U-L with the wildcards filled gives you HAUL, MAUL and PAIL as alternatives when the board refuses the coin.

Where does PAUL sit in the four-letter list?

Among 5,577 four-letter words, 348 begin with P, about 6 percent, and 252 end in L, about 5 percent. The word is a Collins entry, so a pattern search for P-A-U-L matches it only where that list applies.

Its frequency rank of 958 is misleading for the same reason: nearly every printed Paul is a person, not a coin.