response R₁E₁S₁P₃O₁N₁S₁E₁

A response is an answer to a question, or the act of answering. The word also has a specific religious sense: a phrase or verse said by a choir or congregation in reply to an officiant. Its familiar everyday meaning makes RESPONSE a common eight-letter entry, with a recorded frequency count of 12,684.

RESPONSE at a glance

• RESPONSE has eight letters and the sorted letter set EENOPRSS.
• Its Scrabble value is 10 points: P is worth 3, and the other seven tiles are worth 1 each.
• It has no anagrams in the listed word-game data, despite the repeated E and S tiles.
• RESPONSA is its sole one-letter neighbour, differing only at the final letter.

What does RESPONSE mean?

RESPONSE means an answer or reply. It can name the reply itself, as in a response to a question, or the act of replying. The word also covers an oracular answer, giving it a sense beyond ordinary conversation.

In a church service, a response can be a verse, sentence, phrase or word spoken or sung by the choir or congregation after the priest or officiant. That ceremonial meaning is less everyday than “reply,” but it is part of the word’s definition.

For Scrabble, the score comes from a single three-point tile: P. R, E, S, O and N each contribute one point, and the second S and E do too. The eight tiles total 10 before any board-square bonuses.

Which words rhyme with RESPONSE?

The rhyme group follows RESPONSE’s final sound, represented by the tail NSE. Sense, dense, tense and rinse are compact examples; defense, license, expense and suspense show how the rhyme also appears in longer words.

There are 12 listed rhymes, including intense, offense, nonsense and immense. The set is varied in meaning, so it suits a line about an answer as readily as one about pressure, cost or mood.

RESPONSA is the only one-letter neighbour recorded for RESPONSE. It keeps the first seven letters in place and changes the final E to A. That close spelling is easy to overlook when checking a rack or scanning a word list.