kwah, kway
Qua means "in the capacity of" or "as being." It's a Latin preposition used in formal English to indicate the specific role or capacity in which someone or something is being considered.
Yes. QUA is in the Scrabble-style word list used by our tools and scores 12 points in Scrabble, 13 in Words With Friends and 13 in Wordfeud (base tile values, no board multipliers). Always check the dictionary your game uses (NWL, Collins or the WWF list) before playing.
| Letter | Q | U | A | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scrabble | 10 | 1 | 1 | 12 |
| Words With Friends | 10 | 2 | 1 | 13 |
| Wordfeud | 10 | 2 | 1 | 13 |
Qua is a Latin preposition that has been adopted into formal English, meaning "in the capacity of," "as being," or "in the character of." It's used to specify the particular aspect or role in which someone or something is being considered.
In academic and philosophical writing, qua is employed to make precise distinctions. For example, "The president qua commander-in-chief has certain powers" means the president has these powers specifically in their role as commander-in-chief, not in their other capacities.
While relatively uncommon in everyday speech, qua remains an important word in legal, philosophical, and academic contexts where precision of meaning is crucial. In word games, it's particularly valuable due to the high-scoring Q tile.
Qua comes directly from Latin, where it served as the ablative singular feminine form of the relative pronoun "qui" (who, which). In Latin, it literally meant "by which" or "as."
Anagrams: no other word uses exactly the letters of QUA.
Hooks: front AQUA; back QUAD, QUAG, QUAI, QUAY.
Words inside QUA: 0 shorter words can be made from these letters. See all words from QUA.