Is ZEK a valid word?

ZEK is a prisoner in a Soviet labor camp, a word from Russian prison slang made known by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's writing; its plural is ZEKS. With the 10-point Z and the 5-point K, ZEK is worth 16 points before any bonus, a big score for three tiles. The Gulag camps held millions of zeks across the Soviet Union. The word comes from the Russian abbreviation for a prisoner, said as a syllable. Its 5-point K makes ZEK one of the highest-scoring three-letter words.

Before any bonus squares: Z 10 + E 1 + K 5 = 16. On a double-word square that's 32, on a triple-word 48, and every letter bonus under one of these tiles is applied first.

Later in the game, put the Z on a 3L square and ZEK is worth 36 before any word bonus.

Place that one tile so it also forms a word in the other direction and both words score.

Swap any one letter of ZEK and these are still words:

No other word in the list uses exactly the letters Z, E and K.

ZEK is an inmate of a Soviet labor camp, from Russian.

• Three-letter words with J, Q, X or Z

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