http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lovecraft_scrabble.jpg
[[caption-width:614:[[AndNowYouKnowTheRestOfTheStory ...and now you know]] [[HPLovecraft the rest of the story.]]]]
The cast is sitting around playing {{Scrabble}}. Someone plays a nonsense word and gets called on it. Cheater will be forced to come up with a definition on the spot.

If the writers know something about Scrabble, expect the word to contain copious amounts of the five-, eight- and 10-point letter tiles: K, J, X, Q and Z. But [[RuleOfFunny let's ignore the fact]] that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrabble_letter_distributions#English actual English language Scrabble sets]] only contain one each of those tiles. A similar game, [[http://www.bananagrams-intl.com/ Bananagrams]], contains two each of those consonants.

Usually, but not always, a SitCom trope. [[TropeNamers Named]] after a word Bart makes up during a [[TheSimpsons Simpson family]] Scrabble game.

Subtrope of {{Neologism}}. See also PerfectlyCromulentWord.

[[supersecretspoiler: [[DontExplainTheJoke Incidentally, the example at left doesn't work (even assuming that Lovecraft isn't lying) because proper names are forbidden.]]]]
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!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Advertising]]
*In an NBA on ESPN commercial, Shaquille O'Neal is dominating a game of Scrabble. The Phoenix Suns center baffles NBA analysts Stuart Scott and Mike Breen with words like "Shaqtastic" and "Shaqtus". The presence of so many Q's is [[LampshadeHanging challenged by the anchors]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo0ncg-2zPY]] Additional humor in that he breaks almost every rule. Multiple turns in a row, words that aren't actually connected to each other, incomplete "words", and words that are far too long to be played at once.
-->'''Shaq:''' Don't worry about it.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Fic]]
* ''UndocumentedFeatures'' has Lying Bastard Scrabble. [[http://www.eyrie-productions.com/Forum-docs/DCForumID9/215.html Here]] is a forum post about it.
-->'''[[WordOfGod Gryphon]]:''' In the pure form of LBS, no real words are allowed, and a player accidentally making up a word that can be proven real is disqualified.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* In ''{{Sneakers}}'', TheChick tries to play the word "scrunchy" and describes it as "you know what happens to your face? Right now, your face is scrunchy."
** Of course, "scrunchy" is a real word, though some people might be more familiar with the spelling "scrunchie".
* Subverted somewhat in ''KingRalph'': When Ralph and Miranda are playing Scrabble during their first date, Ralph plays the simple word "yo". When Miranda objects, saying that there's no such word, Ralph replies, "Are you crazy? I use it all the time! You don't have to look it up. We're using the King's English, right? If I say it, it's a word."
** Oddly enough, the rules for Scrabble do state that you can use slang...
* One scene in the indie drama ''Snow Cake'' involves a game of "comic book word Scrabble", a variant in which made-up words are totally allowed as long as they sound reasonably comic-book-ish and the player can use them in a sentence. Words played during the game include "baang", "yaamool", and "dazlious".
* ''Ken Park'' features a scene in which one rather sociopathic character's grandfather tries playing the word "sipi" in a Scrabble game, arguing that it's a part of the body below the hips. This results in the outraged grandson throwing the table and declaring himself the winner [[spoiler: and later murdering his grandparents.]]
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[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Watchers'' by DeanKoontz, a significant shift in Nora's personality and her relationship with Travis is signaled by her joking with him by playing such fictitious words as "dofnup" (she claims it's a logger's nightcap) and "hurkey" (claiming it's a dish made with both ham and turkey).
* The short story "Scrabble With {{God}}", by [=~John M. Ford~=], uses this trope with a twist. "It isn't that he cheats, exactly." But any word he plays is a real word -- even if it wasn't a minute ago. And he's not above ''un''creating things in order to be able to challenge his opponents' words, either...
*One of DaveBarry's columns ("Wheel of Misfortune") talks about how he's bad at Scrabble and often makes words up. When asked to use the word "doot" in a sentence, his reply is "Look! A doot!" He later claims that the answer to a ''WheelOfFortune'' puzzle contained this word.
*In ''The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass aged 37¾'', [[TheDitz Leonard Thynn]] uses "vquex", which he insists is defined in the full length Oxford Dictionary as "a cross between a ferret and a giraffe". Gerald objects on the grounds that the required mating act would be geometrically impossible.
** Artificial insemination solves the geometry problem, but [[YouFailBiologyForever not a host of others]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''{{Friends}}'': Phoebe tries to play "scrunchy", Ross uses "garge" (which he claims is a nautical term), and Chandler uses "fligament". ...But [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrunchie scrunchy's a word...]] Which is the joke: They don't believe her.
* ''{{Seinfeld}}'' - "Quone": "To quone something!" Upon not finding it in the dictionary, Kramer explains that it's a medical term: "A patient gets difficult, you ''quone'' him!"
* ''WillAndGrace'' - "Spramp": "Every morning I... spramp my face with cold water. (...)The bubbles from a Jacuzzi spramp up. Note how the sea spramps off the jagged rocks."
* ''RedDwarf'' - "jozxyqk": a Cat word meaning "the sound you make when you get your sexual organs trapped in something."
--> '''Lister:''' "Is it in the dictionary?"
--> '''Cat:''' "It might be, if you were reading it in the nude and closed the book too fast."
** Having been in the situation himself, ThisTroper can confirm that "jozxyqk" is the precise word you would use to express yourself.
* ''LittleBritain'' - "cupboardy" (Kenny Craig hypnotizes his mother to believe that "cupboardy" is a valid word.)
* ''{{Frasier}}'' - "Quilty": "Her grandmother's bed was warm and... quilty."
* ''HomeImprovement'':
-->'''Randy:''' Melonology?!
-->'''Brad:''' It's the study of melons!
-->'''Mark:''' There's no such word as "melonology"!
-->'''Brad:''' Sure there is! Call the fruit section of the grocery store.
-->'''Randy:''' Who should I ask for? The melonologist?
-->(later...)
-->'''Jill:''' "Melonology"?
-->'''Tim:''' Yeah, it's the study of guys named Mel!
* ''{{Psych}}''
-->'''Henry:''' Not a word.
-->'''Shawn:''' Fergulous.
-->'''Henry:''' I said not a word!
-->'''Shawn:''' Oh, I see, last week when we were playing Scrabble it was not a word, but this week, when it's convenient for you, it is a word.
* ''MalcolmInTheMiddle'' had Francis scamming Craig at Scrabble by claiming that everything was a "military term". He later retaliated:
-->"And I'm pretty sure 'myzsrec' is spelled with a 'k'!"
* ''{{Spaced}}'' had a variant in that the words weren't made up, just extremely dubious. They included "Shazam" and "Pro-V" ("That's not a word, it's something they made up to make shampoo sound important").
* In a rare dramatic use of this trope, ''{{CSI}}'' featured a player who used nonword "exvin" in a tournament for a Scrabble FictionalCounterpart game as a bluff. He then added insult to injury; when the opponent added an S to create "exvins", the first player challenged and had the tiles and points removed. This annoyed the opponent enough to murder him by ''shoving the tiles down his throat''.
** In a bit of FridgeLogic, Catherine showed that the word "vixen" could be spelled with the same letters, though had he played the valid word he couldn't have screwed his opponent on adding the "S", so it's possible he did it intentionally.
* In ''{{Ellen}}'', Adam is called on his use of the word "susurrus". It turns out to be a real word, but not for a kind of dinosaur as he claimed.
** Not a Scrabble example, but there was an old {{MTV}} mockumentary about a boy band (''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2ge%2Bher 2ge+her]]'') in which said boy band hosted a spelling bee where that word came up. When asked to use it in a sentence, they produced: "Hey, man: check out that sussurrus."
* In an episode of ''TheGoldenGirls'', Sophia plays the word "disdam". When Dorothy asks her to use it in a sentence, she says, "You're no good at disdam game!"
* ''FamilyTies'' - Dad Steve puts down "zoquo", Greek for water sports. When Alex is accused of hoarding the U's so nobody can use a Q (which doesn't make sense; a normal Scrabble set contains only one Q, which already would be in "zoquo"), he puts down "ushnuu".
--> '''Alex:''' Yeah, it's Greek for... towel off.
--> '''Steve:''' Use it in a sentence.
--> '''Alex:''' After I zoquo I like to ushnuu.
* Subverted in the British SitCom ''{{Grownups}}'': Claire and Grant are playing Scrabble and the former ends the game with the word "fadge". Grant demands Claire to use it in a sentence and Claire says "I beat Grant at Scrabble using the word 'fadge'." Unconvinced, Grant checks the dictionary... and it turns out to be [[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Fadge a real word]].
* Subverted in ''{{Roseanne}}'', when dumb guy Mark puts down the word 'oxygen'. The others convince him that this is not a word but an abbreviation so that it will fit on those tanks. When he asks why they don't print it vertically they tell him it's illegal. He is convinced and puts down the word 'it' instead.
* Subverted in ''{{Becker}}'':
-->'''Bob:''' ''Xebec?''
-->'''Jake:''' Yeah, xebec.
-->'''Bob:''' That's not a word.
-->'''Jake:''' Sure it is. It's an antiquated, tri-masted Grecian vessel.
-->'''Bob:''' ''None'' of those are words!
* [[DoubleSubversion Doubly subverted]] in ''{{ALF}}''; Alf plays the word "quidnunc". Everyone challenges him, but the word exists (it's a term, originally from Latin, for a gossip), although it's not what Alf thought it was (a person who wears meat). Since they all challenged, Alf gets an ExtraTurn: He turns the word into "quidnuncle", a relative who wears meat.
* Parodied in the French-Canadian series "Le Coeur à Ses Raisons". Brett and Criquette are playing a friendly game of scrabble. Criquette places the letters "W-Q-T" to spell the word "Waquetue", a (fictious) nocturnal aquatic animal. Brett spells the word "quixict" (QXTC), also a nocturnal aquatic animal. Criquett then adds an "s" to "QXTC" to spell the word "helicopter"... [[SoYeah yeah]].
* Not really a straightforward example, but in an episode of ''YesDear'', Jimmy attempts to play "Cheeto", but misspells it as "Cheato". Kim (having obviously never played ''BanjoKazooie'') calls him on his spelling error and said he couldn't use it anyway because it was a brand name for a snack food. Jimmy then challenges her earlier play of "ritzy".
** Also, a couple minutes later, he asks if "gloonge" is a word.
* Subverted in {{NCIS}} - Tim is winning a scrabble game by a lot of points, and smugly remarks "It's going to be awfully difficult to play that Q without a U." Of course, Ziva plays it as "Qi" in such a good place that she wins the game, with Timothy still arguing that it isn't a word. Of course, he has to say that considering he's a published author who just got beaten by someone who speaks English (badly) as a seventh language.
** Well, [[{{Malaproper}} Hollywood Badly]].
* ''AsTimeGoesBy'' (Series 5, Episode 1) - After disagreements over ''furzes'' and an attempt to change ''cottage'' to ''pottage'', Jean places ''flug'' and claims it's Old English.
* ''[[{{MASH}} M*A*S*H]]'' did this as a throwaway joke during one of the earlier episodes. Hawkeye tried to play the word "valeness," explaining that it meant "to be full of vale, vale-y".
-->'''Henry Blake:''' Valeness? What does that mean?
-->'''Trapper:''' It means he's losing Henry, take that off.
* Inverted in an episode of ''That70sShow'', where [[TheDitz Midge]] was unable to realize that she had the word "zygotes" spelled out ''in order'' in her... tile-holding thingamajig.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Magazines]]
* ''InQuest'' once had an article which documented a three-day marathon of gaming by five editors. The last game was Scrabble. Since it was being played by sleep-deprived professional geeks, "words" like [[RodentsOfUnusualSize ROUS]] became very common with no one being called out. Also, the geek-friendly "CTHULHU" and the slightly more dubious "URMFGA."
* Back when GaryGygax did a monthly column for ''{{Dragon}}'' magazine, he related an incident involving the word "quij".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* In ''CalvinAndHobbes'', Calvin plays "Zqfmgb" on a Double Word Score box for 957 points.
-->'''Hobbes:''' "Zqfmgb" isn't a word! It doesn't even have a vowel!\\
'''Calvin:''' It is so a word! It's a worm found in New Guinea! Everyone knows that!\\
'''Hobbes:''' I'm looking it up.\\
'''Calvin:''' You do, and I'll look up that 12-letter word ''you'' played with all the [[NoodleIncident X's and J's]]!"\\
'''Hobbes:''' ...what's your score for "zqfmgb"?
** In another strip, Calvin somehow scores 2 points by playing the word "be", despite the letter B being worth three points. It's possible that the B could have been a blank that had previously been placed next to a double letter score on which he played the E; however, he'd complained that all his letters were consonants, so it's more likely that Watterson simply DidNotDoTheResearch.
* There was a ''Mother Goose and Grimm'' cartoon that showed Grimm and Attilla playing Scrabble. Grimm challenged Attilla when he played the word "meow". The point being that [[spoiler:Grimm is a dog and Attila is a cat]].
* ''FoxTrot'': "What does H-O-H spell?" "Water?"
**Slightly justified in that the atomic formula for water is indeed HOH (H20).
*After a long dry spell in a game, Wally of ''ComicStrip/StoneSoup'' puts down "Zuccini" [sic] on a double-word score. He defends himself by saying that's how it's spelled at the produce stand, only to be told "[[RougeAnglesOfSatin They also sell 'onyons' and 'bokays'.]]"
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''OrderOfTheStick'': [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0031.html Elan the dumb-as-rocks bard plays Scrabble]] with a [[strike:Mind Flayer?]] [[strike:Illithid?]] [[strike:Psionic Danger?]] ''[[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0030.html Squid Thingy!]]''
--->'''Elan:''' What's a "zyqxuwy"?
--->'''Mind Flayer:''' It's a type of fish.
* According to ''[[EightBitTheater 8-bit Theater]]'', "qukrx" is an irrational letter that exists outside of the alphabet and it is difficult to play Hypothetical Scrabble without it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''TheSimpsons'' is the TropeNamer, with "Kwyjibo": "Uh... a big, dumb, balding North American ape. With no chin." "And a short temper." Admittedly those were pretty lousy letters.
** Inverted in the same episode, where Homer complains of having a bad set of tiles -- that spell out "oxidize." Oddly, unlike many examples, combining both these "words" into a single game is still entirely possible with the rarity of certain letters.
* ''TheCritic'': Extremely rich guy Duke makes up the word "qzybuk", and when Marty calls him on it, Duke phones Noah Webster himself (ignoring the fact the man has been dead for 150 years) and bribes them to make it a real word. Which he did, with a definition he made up on the spot ("How about...a big problem?"). Another character uses the word later in the same episode.
-->'''Duke:''' How about that other word I invented, "Duke-licious"? No one's using it? What a Duke-tastrophe.
** It might be noticed that the writer for ''The Critic'', Jon Vitti, also wrote the ''The Simpsons'' "Kwyjibo" episode (''Bart the Genius''), making it a bit of a [[RecycledScript Recycled Joke]].
* The ''[[Series/{{Dilbert}} Dilbert]]'' cartoon does it when Dilbert is forced to defeat a supercomputer at Scrabble. Subverted by the fact that the computer hacks into various online dictionaries and inserts the word "wipqozn" into society.
** In another instance, Dogbert cheats by using a wood burner to make ''counterfeit tiles''. Although the word he plays is an actual word ("Quizzing"), there's only one Z in a Scrabble set, as Dilbert himself points out.
*** That's the sort of think that allowed him to lose 188 games in a row...
** Also subverted when Dilbert tries to play "it". Dogbert challenges, and ''wins'' because the dictionary in which they look "it" up was published by Dilbert's company and actually does not contain the word.
** They did it in the comic too, though subverted. Dogbert played "neans".
-->'''Dilbert:''' Neans is not a word.
-->'''Dogbert:''' I know, but I wanted to get rid of some N's.
-->'''Dilbert:''' [[IncrediblyLamePun The N's don't justify the neans.]]
-->'''Dogbert:''' [[JustForPun I just wanted to hear you say that.]]
** This may actually play off the author's real life issues with the game, thanks to his mother.
-->It wasn't until college that I learned Webster did not make any last-minute additions to the dictionary. To this day, I still wonder if headbutting is legal in Scrabble.
* Played with in ''{{Taz-Mania}}'', where Taz makes a weird word, with symbols that aren't even in Scrabble pieces, but when he was called on it, it actually was in the dictionary.
* An episode of ''TheFlintstones'' opens with Fred playing Scrabble against Arnold the paper boy, and trying to pass off "zarf" as a word.
** "Zarf" is an antiquated Victorian word describing an ornamental cup holder for a hot cup without a handle. Just so you know.
* Inverted in ''StickinAround'' where the bored kids bust out 'Squabble', where they must use anything that ''isn't'' a word.
* In the ''AmericanDad'' episode "Stan Knows Best", the family is playing Scrabble. Roger the alien tries to play "quivecs".
-->'''Steve:''' Quivecs? That's not a word!
-->'''Roger:''' It is on my planet.
-->'''Francine:''' Is it a proper noun?
-->''Roger scowls and withdraws his tiles.''
*In the ''{{Metalocalypse}}'' episode "Klokblocked", the guys (minus Nathan) are playing Scrabble. Skwisgaar plays the word ''quhzk''.
-->'''Skwisgaar''':...Ok, this is a words? Q-U-H-Zs-K?
-->'''Toki:''' Quhzks! That's whats the ducks says!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* The ZX Spectrum version of ''Scrabble'' had a fairly restricted dictionary, due to reasons of space; allegedly it cut out some of the simpler words so the computer could play more complex ones. This resulted in illegal moves not being rejected, but the computer asking the user to confirm whether he was playing a valid word. Which he was. Every time. Honest. What do you mean "QXWWVAR" isn't a word?
** Depressingly, this is also true of the late-nineties-early-noughties mobile phone game: It won't check anthing over six letters. ''Two'' Triple Word Scores, you say?
** To make things even more fun, there's at least one PC version of Scrabble that ''saves'' the words you confirm as being valid into its dictionary. Have fun when the AI plays "qxwwvar" against you...
* [[http://oxyphenbutazone.ytmnd.com/ Oxyphenbutazone]]. (Which is also an aversion: It is, in fact, a word listed in the official Scrabble tournament dictionaries.)
**And if you were wondering, it's a metabolite of a veterinary anti-inflammatory drug, most often used to treat horses.
* See if [[http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/00/set1/7/Puzzle.html this puzzle from the MIT Mystery Hunt]] isn't within your grasp.
* The band Foghat was named after an attempt at a KWYJIBO by one of its members.
[[/folder]]
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