"Q is always followed by U" is one of the first spelling rules anyone learns, and in the JumbleFix word list it holds up remarkably well. Of the 2,308 game words that contain a Q, all but 29 follow it with a U. That is 98.7% obedience, which is better than most rules manage.
The other 1.3% are where the fun is. If you play Scrabble or Words With Friends, these 29 words are how you get rid of a Q when no U is coming to the rescue.
The complete list
Here are all 29, grouped by root. Most come into English from other languages, which is why they never picked up the habit.
- QAT, QATS. A shrub whose leaves are chewed or brewed as a tea in East Africa and Yemen. Also spelled KAT and KHAT.
- QAID, QAIDS. A Muslim chief, judge or senior official. Also spelled CAID and KAID.
- QOPH, QOPHS. A letter of the Hebrew alphabet, also spelled KOPH.
- QANAT, QANATS. An underground channel that carries water from a hillside to fields, an old irrigation technique from Persia.
- QINDAR, QINDARS, QINTAR, QINTARS, QINDARKA. Small units of Albanian money: 100 qindarka make one lek.
- QIVIUT, QIVIUTS. The soft underwool of the musk ox, prized for knitting.
- QWERTY, QWERTYS. The standard keyboard layout, named for the first six letters on its top row.
- SUQ, SUQS. A marketplace in an Arab city, also spelled SOUK.
- FAQIR, FAQIRS. A Muslim or Hindu holy man who lives on alms, also spelled FAKIR.
- TRANQ, TRANQS. Short for tranquilizer.
- UMIAQ, UMIAQS. A large open boat made of skins, used by Inuit peoples. Also spelled UMIAK.
- BUQSHA, BUQSHAS. A former coin of Yemen.
- SHEQEL, SHEQALIM. A spelling of shekel, the Israeli currency; SHEQALIM is a plural.
Count them and you get 29: QAT, QATS, QAID, QAIDS, QOPH, QOPHS, QANAT, QANATS, QINDAR, QINDARS, QINTAR, QINTARS, QINDARKA, QIVIUT, QIVIUTS, QWERTY, QWERTYS, SUQ, SUQS, FAQIR, FAQIRS, TRANQ, TRANQS, UMIAQ, UMIAQS, BUQSHA, BUQSHAS, SHEQEL and SHEQALIM.
The short ones are the useful ones
At the board, length matters more than trivia. These are the plays you can actually make with a crowded rack:
- 3 letters: QAT, SUQ
- 4 letters: QAID, QATS, QOPH, SUQS
- 5 letters: FAQIR, QAIDS, QANAT, QOPHS, TRANQ, UMIAQ
A good habit is to look for an A and a T (or an A, I and D) whenever you draw a Q without a U. QAT needs just two common letters, and QAID needs three. If your rack has an S, SUQ and SUQS let the Q hang off the end of a word instead of the front.
What about QI?
QI, the two-letter Q play many players know, is valid in current official Scrabble dictionaries. It is not in the ENABLE list this article counts, because ENABLE was finished before QI was added to those dictionaries. If your game accepts QI, it is the best Q dump of all; check your game's own dictionary before you rely on it.
Why the U rule is so strong
English borrowed the QU spelling from Latin and French, where it is nearly universal, and then used it for the "kw" sound in words like QUEEN, QUICK and SQUARE. Words that came in from Arabic, Hebrew, Albanian, Inuit languages and others, and words built from initials like QWERTY, skipped that history, so their Q stands alone. That is also why they cluster around a few topics: money, religion, trade, water and, in one case, typing.
A few things to remember
- The Q is worth 10 points in Scrabble and Words With Friends, so a short Q play on a premium square can score well even without a long word.
- Plurals count. QATS, QAIDS and SUQS are as valid as the singular forms, which gives you an extra way to hook onto an S already on the board.
- Do not hold a Q forever. Racks with a Q hide far fewer words than racks without one, so the cost of waiting for a U adds up over several turns.
To see what a Q rack can make right now, try the word score calculator or the Scrabble word finder, or look up any of the words above, such as QAT, for its full entry.
How we counted
We started from the ENABLE word list, a public-domain list used by many word games (172,823 words), and kept the 155,980 words that are also active on JumbleFix. Of those, 2,308 contain a Q, and 29 contain a Q that is not followed by a U. Each spelling counts once, so plurals are counted separately from their singulars.
This article was written with the help of an AI model. The counts and the list come from queries against the JumbleFix word list.