Words ending in “-ing” are a popular choice in Scrabble as they are a great way to extend existing words on the board and create longer words for yourself. Read along with this article to get some inspiration for possible “ing” words you can use in your next game.
In this article
- What is the “-ing” suffix?
- Short “-ing” words
- Longer words ending in “-ing”
- Why “-ing” words are so useful
- Summary
What is the “-ing” suffix?
The “-ing” suffix refers to the three letters “ing” that can be added to the end of a word. This sometimes makes a whole new word or just extends the existing one by adding additional meaning.
The “-ing” suffix is usually added to the end of words to represent an action or result in relation to the root word. For example, take the word “smash”, meaning to break something. By making this into “smashing” it becomes an action, i.e., the act carried out to break something.
In the English language, words ending in “-ing” are popular. In fact, in the Collins Scrabble Word dictionary there are approximately 20,000 words ending in “-ing”. This represents around 7% of the whole Scrabble word base.
As you can see, this makes it worthwhile to learn a few “-ing” words to use.
Short “-ing” words
Here are some of my favourite short words ending in “-ing” that you could use in your own games.
4 letter words
- Zing - the highest scoring 4-letter “-ing” word at 14 points. It’s defined as either a high-pitched buzzing noise or to represent an energetic vibe.
- King - a male sovereign or ruler of a kingdom (9 points).
- Wing - an addition that extends off of something or to fly (8 points).
- Bing - a heap, usually of waste from a mine. Also, the popular search engine operated by Microsoft (7 points).
- Ping - a sharp high-pitched sound (7 points).
5 letter words
- Lying - to lie, not tell the truth (9 points).
- Thing - an artefact of something or vague expression for something (9 points).
- Swing - a big sweeping movement (9 points).
- Going - a leave or depart from somewhere (7 points).
Longer words ending in “-ing”
Some examples of longer words that can be made using the “-ing” suffix include:
- Razing - to completely destroy a building (16 points, 6 letters).
- Caving - the act of exploring caves (12 points, 6 letters).
- Paying - to pay for something, exchange one item for another - usually currency for goods (12 points, 6 letters).
- Fawning - to attempt to win somebody’s favour by flattery (14 points, 7 letters).
- Jeering - to abuse someone vocally, specifically to express ridicule (15 points, 7 letters).
- Itching - to itch, i.e., to scratch at an irritation (13 points, 7 letters).
- Seeking - the act of searching for something (12 points, 7 letters).
- Filming - to record video footage of something (13 points, 7 letters).
- Dueling - to fight somebody or something, e.g., to challenge them to a duel (9 points, 7 letters).
Why “-ing” words are so useful
Not only are “-ing” words common, but they can be a valuable strategic resource for Scrabble players. Here are the two main benefits I believe makes learning “-ing” words essential.
1. The “-ing” suffix is perfect for extending words
Not all, but most “-ing” words are formed by taking an existing word and adding “-ing” to the end to make a longer word.
This means you can use the letter tiles “ING” in Scrabble to hook onto the end of words on the board.
Not only does this score you additional points on top of the original word, but it can lead to bonus points say if you can extend a word over a double or triple word square.
2. “-ing” Bingo Words
A Scrabble bingo is when you play all 7 of your letter tiles in one turn to get a bonus of 50 points for that round.
To achieve this, you of course need to have a valid 7-letter word to play, which can be sometimes extremely difficult.
One of my favourite strategies when I pick up the letters “-ing” is to keep them on the right-hand side of my tile rack. Consequently, I now only need to find a 4-letter word that fits the “-ing” suffix to get that all-important bingo and bonus score.
This is a strong tactic to adopt too as there are approximately 2100 7-letter words ending in “-ing” that could be used to gain you that bingo.
Another top tip for “-ing” words is to always consider the plural versions. A lot of “-ing” words can be further extended with an “S” to make them plural for even more points.
Summary
As I mentioned earlier, the “ing” word suffix is extremely popular in the English language and therefore you might want to go away to study more words ending in “ing” to use in Scrabble.
A good starting point for further research is to use our word finder filtered to “-ing” words. This gives a much more comprehensive list where you can go away and explore each word in more detail.
We hope you’ve enjoyed learning about “ing” words in Scrabble and can put this to use in your next game. Happy playing!
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