english - Word Tank-chain-wheel Challenge

My niece gave me this word wheels challenges the other day and I comes up with an alternative. Here's how this challenge works:

Find a word that can form another word by moving its first letter to the end of the word, or vice versa.

Example:

EMIT
MITE
ITEM

Until you can no longer form another word. Here's the rule:

• Must be a word found in dictionary, or a common name.


• Must be at least 3 letters long.


• Must have at least 1 rotation.


• Plural form (end with s) counts as 1 rotation only if you can form another word afterward.


• Please don't be like my niece and use the example as an answer...

Scoring:

• 1 point for each letter used ("emit" will has 4 points)


• 1.5 point for each 'rotation' it can have ("emit" has 2 rotations, thus 3 points)



• 1 point if the word can be loop infinitely.

Highest score wins.

This challenge will remains open for at least 2 days.

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Time's up!

Highest score:
Dr Xorile - 11.5
Engineer Toast - 11.5

Base on the time the answer is submitted, Dr. Xorile will be the winner of this challenge! There are some creative answers which I like much! Thanks for everyone's participation.

Answer

So the obvious "trick" for getting around the plural thing is to use a past-tense:

denunciate -> enunciated gives 11.5

is the best I could find. In a similar vein:

devaluate -> evaluated gives 10.5

If you avoid this trick, then there are other options:

trusties -> rustiest gives 9.5

Although this all works with the scoring system, I think the prettiest answer so far was given by @gannolloy

stripe -> tripes -> ripest (9.0)

The only other one I can think of that's similar is:

stable -> tables -> ablest (9.0)

I'm struggling to find anything that has more rotations apart from 3 letter words (ate->tea->eat; asp->spa->pas (which is a bit weak)). I can't find anything longer than the two above.

I quite like this one which is one letter shorter:

route-> outer->utero (8.0 points)

because it doesn't use any "s" or "d" at all! Similar, but not as good (imho) are:

amass->massa->assam (if that second word is not too politically incorrect), and saver->avers->versa