Words Starting With H

Words That Start with H: The Silent Troublemaker

H is the quiet rebel of the English alphabet. Sometimes it's fully pronounced (HOUSE, HAPPY, HIT), sometimes it vanishes entirely (HOUR, HONEST, HEIR), and sometimes it teams up with other letters to create completely new sounds (SH, CH, TH, PH, WH). This unpredictable behavior traces back to English borrowing words from French, Latin, Greek, and Germanic languages — each with different rules about whether H gets a voice. That ambiguity is why we say "a hotel" in American English but "an hotel" in older British usage.

In word games, H is worth 4 points in Scrabble, placing it in the upper-middle tier. There are only 2 H tiles in the bag, so drawing one is a minor event. The best H plays often involve the two-letter words: HA, HE, HI, HM, HO. HM is especially sneaky — most casual players don't know it's valid. For crosswords, H-words appear constantly as fill, and clues about silence or honesty often point to silent-H words.

Player tip: When you have an H in Scrabble, look for spots where you can play it parallel to existing words, forming multiple two-letter combinations at once. HA/HE/HI stacking can turn a single tile into 20+ points. For other letters with interesting sound behavior, check words starting with Q and its unusual relationship with U, or browse words starting with F for another consonant that pairs well with H. The words starting with P page covers PH combinations that borrow H's sound entirely.

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