GamePlay: Bee Buzz Daily Reviews
Spoiler Alert: These reports discuss the daily Spelling Bee and reveal the pangram(s) and some of the words.
As an informal supplement to our monthly and annual data reports, LexiConnexxions also offers Bee Buzz, a mostly-daily feature that offers insights about the Bee of the day, with information that might inform a player's solving experience, such as changes to the Bee lexicon, relevant bits of Bee history, solving tips or insights, notes about new or particularly interesting Bee words, and more. (We try to post by mid-morning ET, but we are just one person who has many puzzles to solve. If there’s not a report for the current day’s Bee, we are probably down at the rocky shore reading a dictionary and will return anon.) At the end of each month, LexiConnexxions publishes a summary report of changes to the Bee lexicon. Find them all HERE. Thanks, as always, to sbsolver.com for the stats behind each day's puzzle.
If you use the concepts, information, research, or analysis that LexiConnexxions has developed for this feature,
please give credit and a link to this page. We see you out there! Thank you!
BEE BUZZ 2026-11-03
LexiConnexxions' October Summary Report is now available HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3101 C A B I K L TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3101 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/03/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set makes its third appearance today, with three pangrams: BACKLIT, CLICKBAIT, and TAILBACK.
The vast majority of Spelling Bees use recycled letter sets (as reported HERE for 2025, HERE for 2024 and HERE for 2023), and though different center letters are almost always used with each repeat, the pangram(s) almost always remain the same with each subsequent re-use. In nearly all instances, recycled letter sets that have multiple pangrams will feature the same set of pangrams in each iteration. But in several cases that LexiConnexxions has documented in the report “Pangrams With Irregular Histories,” HERE, this has not been the case; in a few cases, pangrams were discontinued after having been used, and in some other cases, pangrams that had been excluded were later added.
The most famous of these “rogue” pangrams must be CLICKBAIT. The first time that this letter set was used (January 31, 2020), the Bee editor did not select it for a pangram. What happened next still resonates in Spelling Bee history; read the whole “CLICKBAITGATE” story at LexiConnexxions collection of Spelling Bee “Goofs and Gaffes,” HERE. (It's in the "Epic Episodes" section.)
Conventional ”hive” wisdom has long held that there have not been duplicate Spelling Bee puzzles, but in fact, there have been dozens of them, with the same letter sets, same center letter, and nearly the same answers. (The solution sets may vary slightly due to addition of words that had been previously disallowed, or the discontinuation of words that had been previously used.) The last duplicate was in 2022; clearly they tightened up their editorial processes to prevent it from happening again. As mentioned above, the letter set used for today's Bee has been used three times before. But the first and second uses were among those old duplicate Bees, with the same center letter (L) and nearly identical solution sets.
Two words in today’s solution set were OUT before they were IN: the pangram CLICKBAIT (excluded once before being accepted), and iliac (excluded 5x before being accepted). LexiConnexxions has documented 285 OUT-IN words, as reported HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s Bee is standard fare, plain vanilla, nothing special to write home about: average-enough word count (49), no pesky suffixes or prefixes, no rare letters. The letter K doesn’t come along too often – it ranks 19th in frequency among all letters used in all letter sets (per sbsolver.com) and 11th in frequency among all letters used in the entire Bee lexicon (per LexiConnexxions) – so having it today added a little spice without too much heat.
SOLVING TIPS
About a fifth of today’s answers are compound words: 11 of 39: backbit, backlit, backtalk, blackball, callback, catcall, cattail, clickbait, kickback, kickball, and tailback. And of those eleven, six incorporate the very common word back. In Bees of moderate or longer length, compound words are sure to be present; keep them on your mental list of solving strategies.
WORD NOTES
What about blackball? The word blackball has appeared in many Spelling Bees, most recently today’s puzzle. What does it mean? In earlier days, rejection from a gentleman’s club was carried out with genteel grace, with quaint devices to preserve the dignity and protect the identity not of the shamed, but of those who administered the shame. If a member had egregiously violated club rules, or offended society or the norms of gentlemanly behavior, he would risk being blackballed, or voted out of the club, and might even be forcibly ejected onto the street. This formal act of ostracism was done by secret ballot; each member chose either a white ball (signifying forgiveness and a wish not to eject) or a black ball (signifying unforgiveness and rejection). Each member would stealthily drop his chosen ball into a locked ballot box, then the box would be opened and the votes tallied. When a preponderance of the balls were black, the offending member was “blackballed” and suffered whatever consequences the membership imposed. There was no second chance, no retraction of furtive votes. Blackballed. LexiConnexxions has included a photo of an old ballot box in WordPlay Wanderings: BLACKBALL, HERE. LexiConnexxions has indexed blackball and other words about social customs and behaviors in the LexiTopic People: Engagement & Interaction, HERE.
LexiConnexxions' October Summary Report is now available HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3101 C A B I K L TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3101 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/03/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set makes its third appearance today, with three pangrams: BACKLIT, CLICKBAIT, and TAILBACK.
The vast majority of Spelling Bees use recycled letter sets (as reported HERE for 2025, HERE for 2024 and HERE for 2023), and though different center letters are almost always used with each repeat, the pangram(s) almost always remain the same with each subsequent re-use. In nearly all instances, recycled letter sets that have multiple pangrams will feature the same set of pangrams in each iteration. But in several cases that LexiConnexxions has documented in the report “Pangrams With Irregular Histories,” HERE, this has not been the case; in a few cases, pangrams were discontinued after having been used, and in some other cases, pangrams that had been excluded were later added.
The most famous of these “rogue” pangrams must be CLICKBAIT. The first time that this letter set was used (January 31, 2020), the Bee editor did not select it for a pangram. What happened next still resonates in Spelling Bee history; read the whole “CLICKBAITGATE” story at LexiConnexxions collection of Spelling Bee “Goofs and Gaffes,” HERE. (It's in the "Epic Episodes" section.)
Conventional ”hive” wisdom has long held that there have not been duplicate Spelling Bee puzzles, but in fact, there have been dozens of them, with the same letter sets, same center letter, and nearly the same answers. (The solution sets may vary slightly due to addition of words that had been previously disallowed, or the discontinuation of words that had been previously used.) The last duplicate was in 2022; clearly they tightened up their editorial processes to prevent it from happening again. As mentioned above, the letter set used for today's Bee has been used three times before. But the first and second uses were among those old duplicate Bees, with the same center letter (L) and nearly identical solution sets.
Two words in today’s solution set were OUT before they were IN: the pangram CLICKBAIT (excluded once before being accepted), and iliac (excluded 5x before being accepted). LexiConnexxions has documented 285 OUT-IN words, as reported HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s Bee is standard fare, plain vanilla, nothing special to write home about: average-enough word count (49), no pesky suffixes or prefixes, no rare letters. The letter K doesn’t come along too often – it ranks 19th in frequency among all letters used in all letter sets (per sbsolver.com) and 11th in frequency among all letters used in the entire Bee lexicon (per LexiConnexxions) – so having it today added a little spice without too much heat.
SOLVING TIPS
About a fifth of today’s answers are compound words: 11 of 39: backbit, backlit, backtalk, blackball, callback, catcall, cattail, clickbait, kickback, kickball, and tailback. And of those eleven, six incorporate the very common word back. In Bees of moderate or longer length, compound words are sure to be present; keep them on your mental list of solving strategies.
WORD NOTES
What about blackball? The word blackball has appeared in many Spelling Bees, most recently today’s puzzle. What does it mean? In earlier days, rejection from a gentleman’s club was carried out with genteel grace, with quaint devices to preserve the dignity and protect the identity not of the shamed, but of those who administered the shame. If a member had egregiously violated club rules, or offended society or the norms of gentlemanly behavior, he would risk being blackballed, or voted out of the club, and might even be forcibly ejected onto the street. This formal act of ostracism was done by secret ballot; each member chose either a white ball (signifying forgiveness and a wish not to eject) or a black ball (signifying unforgiveness and rejection). Each member would stealthily drop his chosen ball into a locked ballot box, then the box would be opened and the votes tallied. When a preponderance of the balls were black, the offending member was “blackballed” and suffered whatever consequences the membership imposed. There was no second chance, no retraction of furtive votes. Blackballed. LexiConnexxions has included a photo of an old ballot box in WordPlay Wanderings: BLACKBALL, HERE. LexiConnexxions has indexed blackball and other words about social customs and behaviors in the LexiTopic People: Engagement & Interaction, HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-11-02
LexiConnexxions' October Summary Report is now available HERE. Today’s Spelling Bee: #3100 D A C E T V XToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3100 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/02/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and the sole pangram EXCAVATED make their fourth appearance today.
No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none discontinued.
One of today’s words, eaved, was excluded six times before being accepted.
Did you look for dace? The fish was used in eight Bees before being discontinued in 2024.
LexiConnexxions tracks all the INS and OUTs of the Spelling Bee lexicon HERE, updating our unique reports whenever there is a change.
DESIGN NOTES
What have we got to play with today?
E+D: Today’s Bee is the first E+D Bee of the month; 24 of the 35 words (69%) used the -ED suffix.
The rare letter X: Today’s is only the 144th Bee (of 3100) to include the letter X, and today’s pangram EXCAVATED is one of only 61 pangrams (of 1909) to include the letter X. LexiConnexxions tracks all Bees (and pangrams) with the rare (for the Bee) letters J, Q, S, X, and Z; see them all HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
With D as center letter, this -ED Bee was perhaps a little more challenging than the usual suffix-fest in which a player can simply slap -ED onto root words that are already part of the solution set (e.g. today, cede and ceded). Why? Because in today’s list, 17 words required players to “see” words that were not in today’s Bee at all, either because they did not include the center letter D, or because they were only three letters long, or both of those factors: aced, acted, added, axed, caved, eaved, exacted, excavated, tatted, taxed, teed, texted, vacated, vaxed, vaxxed, vetted, and vexed.
WORD NOTES
What’s with the XX in vaxxed?? In today’s Spelling Bee forum, a player commented that the doubled X in vaxxed is “unnecessary and unsightly” and speculated that social media users had needlessly added the “exxtra x.” Though the noun “vaxx” or “vax” (shortened and respelled from vaccination) has been around since the late 1970s, the verb form and its various forms (vaxxed or vaxed, vaxxing or vaxing) didn’t catch on until (per M-W) 2004, a few years after a resurgence in anti-vaccination sentiment.
Those two Xs do look a little odd, perhaps because there are only a few words in English that contain two Xs together; all the sources we checked yielded at most these eighteen (four of which are in the Bee lexicon)….
antivaxxer antivaxxers doxx doxxed doxxes doxxing doxxings looksmaxx looksmaxxed looksmaxxer looksmaxxers looksmaxxes looksmaxxing unvaxxed vaxx vaxxed vaxxes vaxxing
… and with the exception of the words related to vaxx, most are very recent coinages that probably were first used in social media.
But is that such a bad thing?
We as speakers and writers of English take all sorts of liberties with words: we clip them (exam, quiz), we blend them (motel, brunch), we vary their spellings (tepee, teepee, tipi), we invent them! And of course, every word in every language at any point in history was invented by a person. That’s how language happens. And lexicographers record how we speak and write, and make dictionaries out it all. And the Bee editor uses words that are in dictionaries.
Social media is just the latest communication technology that has shaped how we speak and write. Perhaps the most important example of how technology informs language change is standardized spelling itself, which was implemented after the printing press was invented. Centuries later we developed the "telegram style" of writing, clipping words so as to maximize what could be packed into a telegram of just 10-15 words. Television introduced a slew of new words to American English, and has (in some views) coarsened and roughened our discourse. And the cool kids -- on social media now or in jazz clubs 100 years ago -- are always coining new slang. For example, the Bee words doxed, doxing, doxx, doxxed, and doxxing are from social media, while the Bee words "attaboy" and "attagirl" date from the Jazz Era.
The clipped word “vax” reminds me of "rev" – “rev” has many meanings, of course, including as a shortened form of the noun "revolution,” which is comparable “vax” being a shortened form of vaccination. And when we verb the short noun “rev,” such as when we are revving our engines, we double the V as we do it.
Language is dynamic, always ready to be flexed and revved to meet our needs.
LexiConnexxions' October Summary Report is now available HERE. Today’s Spelling Bee: #3100 D A C E T V XToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3100 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/02/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and the sole pangram EXCAVATED make their fourth appearance today.
No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none discontinued.
One of today’s words, eaved, was excluded six times before being accepted.
Did you look for dace? The fish was used in eight Bees before being discontinued in 2024.
LexiConnexxions tracks all the INS and OUTs of the Spelling Bee lexicon HERE, updating our unique reports whenever there is a change.
DESIGN NOTES
What have we got to play with today?
E+D: Today’s Bee is the first E+D Bee of the month; 24 of the 35 words (69%) used the -ED suffix.
The rare letter X: Today’s is only the 144th Bee (of 3100) to include the letter X, and today’s pangram EXCAVATED is one of only 61 pangrams (of 1909) to include the letter X. LexiConnexxions tracks all Bees (and pangrams) with the rare (for the Bee) letters J, Q, S, X, and Z; see them all HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
With D as center letter, this -ED Bee was perhaps a little more challenging than the usual suffix-fest in which a player can simply slap -ED onto root words that are already part of the solution set (e.g. today, cede and ceded). Why? Because in today’s list, 17 words required players to “see” words that were not in today’s Bee at all, either because they did not include the center letter D, or because they were only three letters long, or both of those factors: aced, acted, added, axed, caved, eaved, exacted, excavated, tatted, taxed, teed, texted, vacated, vaxed, vaxxed, vetted, and vexed.
WORD NOTES
What’s with the XX in vaxxed?? In today’s Spelling Bee forum, a player commented that the doubled X in vaxxed is “unnecessary and unsightly” and speculated that social media users had needlessly added the “exxtra x.” Though the noun “vaxx” or “vax” (shortened and respelled from vaccination) has been around since the late 1970s, the verb form and its various forms (vaxxed or vaxed, vaxxing or vaxing) didn’t catch on until (per M-W) 2004, a few years after a resurgence in anti-vaccination sentiment.
Those two Xs do look a little odd, perhaps because there are only a few words in English that contain two Xs together; all the sources we checked yielded at most these eighteen (four of which are in the Bee lexicon)….
antivaxxer antivaxxers doxx doxxed doxxes doxxing doxxings looksmaxx looksmaxxed looksmaxxer looksmaxxers looksmaxxes looksmaxxing unvaxxed vaxx vaxxed vaxxes vaxxing
… and with the exception of the words related to vaxx, most are very recent coinages that probably were first used in social media.
But is that such a bad thing?
We as speakers and writers of English take all sorts of liberties with words: we clip them (exam, quiz), we blend them (motel, brunch), we vary their spellings (tepee, teepee, tipi), we invent them! And of course, every word in every language at any point in history was invented by a person. That’s how language happens. And lexicographers record how we speak and write, and make dictionaries out it all. And the Bee editor uses words that are in dictionaries.
Social media is just the latest communication technology that has shaped how we speak and write. Perhaps the most important example of how technology informs language change is standardized spelling itself, which was implemented after the printing press was invented. Centuries later we developed the "telegram style" of writing, clipping words so as to maximize what could be packed into a telegram of just 10-15 words. Television introduced a slew of new words to American English, and has (in some views) coarsened and roughened our discourse. And the cool kids -- on social media now or in jazz clubs 100 years ago -- are always coining new slang. For example, the Bee words doxed, doxing, doxx, doxxed, and doxxing are from social media, while the Bee words "attaboy" and "attagirl" date from the Jazz Era.
The clipped word “vax” reminds me of "rev" – “rev” has many meanings, of course, including as a shortened form of the noun "revolution,” which is comparable “vax” being a shortened form of vaccination. And when we verb the short noun “rev,” such as when we are revving our engines, we double the V as we do it.
Language is dynamic, always ready to be flexed and revved to meet our needs.
BEE BUZZ 2026-11-01
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3099 E F G I O P TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3099 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/01/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram PETTIFOG make their third appearance today.
No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none removed.
One of today’s answers – poppet – was excluded from 11 Bees before being accepted.
Two other words that were possible with this letter set – fogie and giftee – were used in earlier Bees (one time each) before being discontinued.
In the first several hours of today’s Bee, fewer than half of players sampled by the Spelling Bee Buddy had found the pangram PETTIFOG. This seems to run counter to what the Bee editor has said about how he envisions pangrams within the context of player experience, as detailed in the LexiConnexxions resource What Sam Says About (Nearly) Everything (see the section on “Editing: Pangram Selection”).
DESIGN NOTES
While E is the most frequently-used letter in the English language, it ranks only 11th in frequency of center letters in Bee history (tying with letter B for that spot).
After a record-breaking month in which most Bees had more than 50 words, today’s 27-word Bee feels a little more relaxed. And other than the archaic-feeling pangram, there’s nothing remarkable about today’s puzzle: no rare letters, no pesky suffixes, no even bingo.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee seems like a tutorial for Bee-solving skills. This puzzle includes...
Three sets of spelling variants: petit and petite, pipet and pipette, teepee and tepee.A slangy word: footieTwo words that we might expect to be hyphenated: potpie, tiptoeSeveral words that feel old-fashioned or that evoke older times: fief, pettifog, poppet, tippetTwo words that are typically spelled with accent: epee, feteSeveral words that end with -EE: epee, ogee, teepee, tepee toffee
WORD NOTES
OK, what about that pangram PETTIFOG?! Merriam-Webster has an entry for the verb pettifog, defining it as an intransitive verb (to engage in legal chicanery, or to quibble over insignificant details: cavil, bicker) and as a transitive verb (to plead [(as a case] with legal chicanery). M-W gives the etymology as a back-formation from pettifogger, “a lawyer whose methods are petty, underhanded, or disreputable: a shyster; or one given to quibbling over trifles.” M-W offers this interesting detail on the origin of pettifogger: “In its earliest English uses, ‘pettifogger’ was two separate words: ‘pettie fogger.’ ‘Pettie’ was a variant spelling of ‘petty,’ a reasonable inclusion in a word for someone who is disreputable and small-minded. But why ‘fogger’? It may come from ‘Fugger,’ the name of a successful family of 15th- and 16th-century German merchants and financiers. Germanic variations of ‘fugger’ were used for the wealthy and avaricious, as well as for hucksters. In English, a ‘pettie fogger’ was originally a small-time operator of a shady business. We're not sure why the word came to be applied specifically to lawyers, but it appears to have initially referred to lower-status attorneys who argued the smaller, less important cases.”
Etymonline has no entry for pettifog, redirecting to pettifogging: “1570s as a verbal noun, ‘the practice of pettifoggery;’ c. 1600 as a present-participle adjective, ‘petty, mean, paltry, characteristic of a pettifogger.’ [link to pettifogger]. A verb pettifog is rare and attested only from 1610s; De Quincey has pettifogulize ‘to use petty and contemptible means.’” Etymonline’s detailed entry for pettifogger expands on all this in a most interesting way.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3099 E F G I O P TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3099 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/01/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram PETTIFOG make their third appearance today.
No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none removed.
One of today’s answers – poppet – was excluded from 11 Bees before being accepted.
Two other words that were possible with this letter set – fogie and giftee – were used in earlier Bees (one time each) before being discontinued.
In the first several hours of today’s Bee, fewer than half of players sampled by the Spelling Bee Buddy had found the pangram PETTIFOG. This seems to run counter to what the Bee editor has said about how he envisions pangrams within the context of player experience, as detailed in the LexiConnexxions resource What Sam Says About (Nearly) Everything (see the section on “Editing: Pangram Selection”).
DESIGN NOTES
While E is the most frequently-used letter in the English language, it ranks only 11th in frequency of center letters in Bee history (tying with letter B for that spot).
After a record-breaking month in which most Bees had more than 50 words, today’s 27-word Bee feels a little more relaxed. And other than the archaic-feeling pangram, there’s nothing remarkable about today’s puzzle: no rare letters, no pesky suffixes, no even bingo.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee seems like a tutorial for Bee-solving skills. This puzzle includes...
Three sets of spelling variants: petit and petite, pipet and pipette, teepee and tepee.A slangy word: footieTwo words that we might expect to be hyphenated: potpie, tiptoeSeveral words that feel old-fashioned or that evoke older times: fief, pettifog, poppet, tippetTwo words that are typically spelled with accent: epee, feteSeveral words that end with -EE: epee, ogee, teepee, tepee toffee
WORD NOTES
OK, what about that pangram PETTIFOG?! Merriam-Webster has an entry for the verb pettifog, defining it as an intransitive verb (to engage in legal chicanery, or to quibble over insignificant details: cavil, bicker) and as a transitive verb (to plead [(as a case] with legal chicanery). M-W gives the etymology as a back-formation from pettifogger, “a lawyer whose methods are petty, underhanded, or disreputable: a shyster; or one given to quibbling over trifles.” M-W offers this interesting detail on the origin of pettifogger: “In its earliest English uses, ‘pettifogger’ was two separate words: ‘pettie fogger.’ ‘Pettie’ was a variant spelling of ‘petty,’ a reasonable inclusion in a word for someone who is disreputable and small-minded. But why ‘fogger’? It may come from ‘Fugger,’ the name of a successful family of 15th- and 16th-century German merchants and financiers. Germanic variations of ‘fugger’ were used for the wealthy and avaricious, as well as for hucksters. In English, a ‘pettie fogger’ was originally a small-time operator of a shady business. We're not sure why the word came to be applied specifically to lawyers, but it appears to have initially referred to lower-status attorneys who argued the smaller, less important cases.”
Etymonline has no entry for pettifog, redirecting to pettifogging: “1570s as a verbal noun, ‘the practice of pettifoggery;’ c. 1600 as a present-participle adjective, ‘petty, mean, paltry, characteristic of a pettifogger.’ [link to pettifogger]. A verb pettifog is rare and attested only from 1610s; De Quincey has pettifogulize ‘to use petty and contemptible means.’” Etymonline’s detailed entry for pettifogger expands on all this in a most interesting way.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-31
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3098 A G H I N T UToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3098 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/31/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and the sole pangram HAUNTING make their début today. Thanks, Sam, for this little treat on Hallowe’en. (The related pangram HAUNTED was first used on November 6, 2023; that was a missed opportunity!)
No other words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none removed.
One of today’s answers, untag, was disallowed from one very early Bee before being accepted. Its participle untagging benefited from that early OUT-IN decision, for untagging has never been disallowed and was included today as expected.
A number of words that were possible today were discontinued earlier from the Bee lexicon; today’s IN-OUT words are antiaging (used 1x before being discontinued), attaint (33x), hatting (1x), ungag (7x), and unhat (7x).
And poor little tain has a very tortured Bee history, being one of just two OUT-IN-OUT-IN-OUT words in the Bee lexicon. It was excluded (OUT) 17x, then used (IN) 1x, then OUT again 14x, then IN again 2x, and was finally booted out (for good?) in 2023. (The only other O-I-O-I-O word in the Bee lexicon is belate.) LexiConnexxions has compiled all these “flip-flop” Bee words HERE.
Today’s new pangram HAUNTING is the 1909th pangram in Bee history. Though there have been 3098 Bees so far, there have been only 1909 pangrams, even though some Bees have multiple pangrams. Why the discrepancy? Because most Bees (about 75%) are built on re-cycled letter sets and pangrams; the Bee editor uses them up to five times.
DESIGN NOTES
Another Big Bumble today: With 56 words, today’s Bee is the 20th in October to have more than 50 words, pushing the average word count for October to 48.35, well above the annual averages for 2025 (44.89) and 2024 (42.75). The high median (53) and modes (56, 51) this month illustrate the preponderance of above-average word counts in October. Is this a trend? LexiConnexxions tracks and analyzes data of this sort, reporting in monthly and annual summaries listed HERE. (The October report will be out later today.)
Today’s Bee is the sixth in October to include I+N+G; this rate (16.13%) is close to the overall rates for 2025 (17.25%) and 2024 (14.21).
The letter A is the third-most frequently used center letter.
Beeatrice donned her witch hat again today, for the last time this year. We saw it at the opening screen (“How many words can you make…?”), again at the “Welcome Back” screen, and at the Genius screen, but not at Queen Bee. (Why not?) See all of Beeatrice’s holiday hats by peeking into her closet HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
Do you love Bees with I+N+G, or hate them? Twenty of today’s 56 words end with the -ING suffix. Whether you find that fun or fearsome, you can make the most of your solving experience with the Solv-ING guide from LexiConnexxions, HERE.
WORD NOTES
Anything, and nothing: Today's answer words aught (meaning anything) and naught (meaning nothing) share a common root: wight, which once meant any thing, creature, etc. Learn more in etymonline’s entries for aught and naught.
Hey, big fella! Today’s Bee has two big guys – giant and titan – and both words derive from the names of mythical creatures. About giant, etymonline says that it is “from Greek Gigas (usually in plural, Gigantes), one of a race of divine but savage and monstrous beings (personifying destructive natural forces), sons of Gaia and Uranus, eventually destroyed by the gods.” And about titan, a word we use with lower-case t to mean “a person or thing of enormous size or ability,” etymonline says that it is “from Greek titan, "a member of a mythological race of primordial deities" (originally six giant sons and six daughters of Gaia and Uranus) who were overthrown by Zeus and the other gods.’” LexiConnexxions keeps track of all such eponymous words in the Bee lexicon in a WordPlay report HERE. And all the titans, giants, and other imaginary beings and creatures in the Bee lexicon are indexed in the LexiTopic Myth & Magic, HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3098 A G H I N T UToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3098 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/31/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and the sole pangram HAUNTING make their début today. Thanks, Sam, for this little treat on Hallowe’en. (The related pangram HAUNTED was first used on November 6, 2023; that was a missed opportunity!)
No other words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none removed.
One of today’s answers, untag, was disallowed from one very early Bee before being accepted. Its participle untagging benefited from that early OUT-IN decision, for untagging has never been disallowed and was included today as expected.
A number of words that were possible today were discontinued earlier from the Bee lexicon; today’s IN-OUT words are antiaging (used 1x before being discontinued), attaint (33x), hatting (1x), ungag (7x), and unhat (7x).
And poor little tain has a very tortured Bee history, being one of just two OUT-IN-OUT-IN-OUT words in the Bee lexicon. It was excluded (OUT) 17x, then used (IN) 1x, then OUT again 14x, then IN again 2x, and was finally booted out (for good?) in 2023. (The only other O-I-O-I-O word in the Bee lexicon is belate.) LexiConnexxions has compiled all these “flip-flop” Bee words HERE.
Today’s new pangram HAUNTING is the 1909th pangram in Bee history. Though there have been 3098 Bees so far, there have been only 1909 pangrams, even though some Bees have multiple pangrams. Why the discrepancy? Because most Bees (about 75%) are built on re-cycled letter sets and pangrams; the Bee editor uses them up to five times.
DESIGN NOTES
Another Big Bumble today: With 56 words, today’s Bee is the 20th in October to have more than 50 words, pushing the average word count for October to 48.35, well above the annual averages for 2025 (44.89) and 2024 (42.75). The high median (53) and modes (56, 51) this month illustrate the preponderance of above-average word counts in October. Is this a trend? LexiConnexxions tracks and analyzes data of this sort, reporting in monthly and annual summaries listed HERE. (The October report will be out later today.)
Today’s Bee is the sixth in October to include I+N+G; this rate (16.13%) is close to the overall rates for 2025 (17.25%) and 2024 (14.21).
The letter A is the third-most frequently used center letter.
Beeatrice donned her witch hat again today, for the last time this year. We saw it at the opening screen (“How many words can you make…?”), again at the “Welcome Back” screen, and at the Genius screen, but not at Queen Bee. (Why not?) See all of Beeatrice’s holiday hats by peeking into her closet HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
Do you love Bees with I+N+G, or hate them? Twenty of today’s 56 words end with the -ING suffix. Whether you find that fun or fearsome, you can make the most of your solving experience with the Solv-ING guide from LexiConnexxions, HERE.
WORD NOTES
Anything, and nothing: Today's answer words aught (meaning anything) and naught (meaning nothing) share a common root: wight, which once meant any thing, creature, etc. Learn more in etymonline’s entries for aught and naught.
Hey, big fella! Today’s Bee has two big guys – giant and titan – and both words derive from the names of mythical creatures. About giant, etymonline says that it is “from Greek Gigas (usually in plural, Gigantes), one of a race of divine but savage and monstrous beings (personifying destructive natural forces), sons of Gaia and Uranus, eventually destroyed by the gods.” And about titan, a word we use with lower-case t to mean “a person or thing of enormous size or ability,” etymonline says that it is “from Greek titan, "a member of a mythological race of primordial deities" (originally six giant sons and six daughters of Gaia and Uranus) who were overthrown by Zeus and the other gods.’” LexiConnexxions keeps track of all such eponymous words in the Bee lexicon in a WordPlay report HERE. And all the titans, giants, and other imaginary beings and creatures in the Bee lexicon are indexed in the LexiTopic Myth & Magic, HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-30
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3097 C A E L N O VToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3097/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/30/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its two pangrams CONCLAVE and COVALENCE make their second appearance today. No words were added to the lexicon, and none discontinued.
Four of today’s answers were OUT before they were IN: canna was disallowed 32x before being accepted, and is now one of the most frequently-used words in the Bee lexicon. Other OUT-IN words today are cloaca (disallowed 3x before being accepted); convo (excluded 16 times before being accepted in February 2026); and nacelle (excluded 12x).
Another of today’s words, clonal, was used in 6 Bees, then excluded 12x, then accepted again.
Two words that were possible today were discontinued from the Bee lexicon: coon (used in 8 Bees 2018-2019, then discontinued) and nonvocal, used 2x before being discontinued in 2025.
LexiConnexxions tracks all the INS and OUTS in the Spelling Bee lexicon, as recorded HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Another 50+ Big Bee today, the 19th so far this month, continuing the October trend of larger than average solution sets. The average puzzle length so far in October is 48, well above annual averages (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). So far in October, the median word count is 52, the modes 56 and 51.
Letter C again? Among center letters, C ranks seventh in terms of frequency. And of all the 11,200+ words in the Bee lexicon, significantly more words begin with C than with any other letter. In today’s Bee, 47 of the 66 answers (71.21%) begin with C. The Bee of October 11 had a similar contour: 37 of the 51 words (72.55%) in that puzzle began with center letter B.
Beeatrice donned her witch hat again today at the opening screen (“How many words can you make…?”), again at the “Welcome Back” screen, and at the Genius screen, but not at Queen Bee. See all of Beeatrice’s holiday hats by peeking into her closet HERE.
WORD NOTES
Today’s Bee has an eponym that’s also a portmanteau word, a toponym, and a brand name: canola. Lots to sort out here! The oil we know as “canola” is from the rapeseed plant. The rape plant is (per Merriam-Webster) “an Old World herb (Brassica napus) of the mustard family grown as a forage crop and for its seeds which yield rapeseed oil and are a bird food.” Other Brassica species include cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, mustards, radishes, and the like. In the 1960s, when Canadian growers bred a new variety of rapeseed that produced an oil more acceptable for human consumption, the Rapeseed Association of Canada (now the Canola Council of Canada) coined (and trademarked) the word canola, a portmanteau of “can” from Canada and “ola” referring to “oil.” (The new word also removed negative associations with the unrelated word rape.) Canola is now a generic term for the improved varieties of rapeseed plant, as well as the oil derived from them.
The Spelling Bee lexicon includes many words that are eponyms, derived from personal or brand names, whether real or fictional. LexiConnexxions has gathered them all into a WordPlay report HERE, along with a separate WordPlay report on Brand Names, Trade Names, and Trademarks, HERE.
Stuck together? Or cut apart….? Consider these words from today’s Bee: clave, cleave, clove, cloven. Here are the essentials from Merriam-Websters’ entries for each of these words:
cleave (verb) cleaved or clove, also clave; cleaved, cleavingto adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly
cleave (verb) cleaved, also cleft of clove; cleaved also cleft or cloved; cleaving[several definitions, all variations on to divide, to separate, to split]
clave1 (verb) past tense of cleave2 (noun) one of a pair of cylindrical hardwood sticks that are used as a percussion instrument
clove1 (noun) one of the small bulbs (as in garlic) developed in the axils of the scales of a large bulb2 (verb) past tense of cleave3 (noun) the dried flower bud of a tropical tree (Syzygium aromaticum synonym Eugenia aromatica) of the myrtle family that is used as a spice and is the source of an oil; also, this tree
cloven(verb) past participle of cleave
Got that?
Today’s Bee also includes...
Words from myth, magic, and belief systems: canon conclave coven Words about people: clan colleen colonel Words about music: canon cello clave loco Words about food and drink: cacao callaloo canola cava clove cocoa cola colcannon LexiConnexxions has analyzed the entire Bee lexicon to record and index the definition(s) of each Bee word. Learn more about the LexiTopics analysis HERE, and start exploring the dozens of LexiTopic reports HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3097 C A E L N O VToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3097/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/30/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its two pangrams CONCLAVE and COVALENCE make their second appearance today. No words were added to the lexicon, and none discontinued.
Four of today’s answers were OUT before they were IN: canna was disallowed 32x before being accepted, and is now one of the most frequently-used words in the Bee lexicon. Other OUT-IN words today are cloaca (disallowed 3x before being accepted); convo (excluded 16 times before being accepted in February 2026); and nacelle (excluded 12x).
Another of today’s words, clonal, was used in 6 Bees, then excluded 12x, then accepted again.
Two words that were possible today were discontinued from the Bee lexicon: coon (used in 8 Bees 2018-2019, then discontinued) and nonvocal, used 2x before being discontinued in 2025.
LexiConnexxions tracks all the INS and OUTS in the Spelling Bee lexicon, as recorded HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Another 50+ Big Bee today, the 19th so far this month, continuing the October trend of larger than average solution sets. The average puzzle length so far in October is 48, well above annual averages (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). So far in October, the median word count is 52, the modes 56 and 51.
Letter C again? Among center letters, C ranks seventh in terms of frequency. And of all the 11,200+ words in the Bee lexicon, significantly more words begin with C than with any other letter. In today’s Bee, 47 of the 66 answers (71.21%) begin with C. The Bee of October 11 had a similar contour: 37 of the 51 words (72.55%) in that puzzle began with center letter B.
Beeatrice donned her witch hat again today at the opening screen (“How many words can you make…?”), again at the “Welcome Back” screen, and at the Genius screen, but not at Queen Bee. See all of Beeatrice’s holiday hats by peeking into her closet HERE.
WORD NOTES
Today’s Bee has an eponym that’s also a portmanteau word, a toponym, and a brand name: canola. Lots to sort out here! The oil we know as “canola” is from the rapeseed plant. The rape plant is (per Merriam-Webster) “an Old World herb (Brassica napus) of the mustard family grown as a forage crop and for its seeds which yield rapeseed oil and are a bird food.” Other Brassica species include cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, mustards, radishes, and the like. In the 1960s, when Canadian growers bred a new variety of rapeseed that produced an oil more acceptable for human consumption, the Rapeseed Association of Canada (now the Canola Council of Canada) coined (and trademarked) the word canola, a portmanteau of “can” from Canada and “ola” referring to “oil.” (The new word also removed negative associations with the unrelated word rape.) Canola is now a generic term for the improved varieties of rapeseed plant, as well as the oil derived from them.
The Spelling Bee lexicon includes many words that are eponyms, derived from personal or brand names, whether real or fictional. LexiConnexxions has gathered them all into a WordPlay report HERE, along with a separate WordPlay report on Brand Names, Trade Names, and Trademarks, HERE.
Stuck together? Or cut apart….? Consider these words from today’s Bee: clave, cleave, clove, cloven. Here are the essentials from Merriam-Websters’ entries for each of these words:
cleave (verb) cleaved or clove, also clave; cleaved, cleavingto adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly
cleave (verb) cleaved, also cleft of clove; cleaved also cleft or cloved; cleaving[several definitions, all variations on to divide, to separate, to split]
clave1 (verb) past tense of cleave2 (noun) one of a pair of cylindrical hardwood sticks that are used as a percussion instrument
clove1 (noun) one of the small bulbs (as in garlic) developed in the axils of the scales of a large bulb2 (verb) past tense of cleave3 (noun) the dried flower bud of a tropical tree (Syzygium aromaticum synonym Eugenia aromatica) of the myrtle family that is used as a spice and is the source of an oil; also, this tree
cloven(verb) past participle of cleave
Got that?
Today’s Bee also includes...
Words from myth, magic, and belief systems: canon conclave coven Words about people: clan colleen colonel Words about music: canon cello clave loco Words about food and drink: cacao callaloo canola cava clove cocoa cola colcannon LexiConnexxions has analyzed the entire Bee lexicon to record and index the definition(s) of each Bee word. Learn more about the LexiTopics analysis HERE, and start exploring the dozens of LexiTopic reports HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-29
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3096 R A D G N O PToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3096 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/29/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its two pangrams GRANDPOP and PROPAGANDA make their fourth appearance today. No words were added to the Bee lexicon, and none discontinued. But several of today’s answers have some Bee history. Five words were excluded before being accepted: dorado (26x), gorp (1x), grappa (1x), raga (3x), and rando (12x).
Did you look for parador? It was used 10x (including in one puzzle with today’s letter set) before being discontinued in 2025. LexiConnexxions tracks and records the histories of Bee words; all the reports are listed HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Another 50+ Big Bee today, the 18th so far this month, continuing the October trend of larger than average solution sets. The average puzzle length so far in Oct is 47.38, which is much higher than annual averages (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). So far in October, the median word count is 51, the modes 56 and 51.
Except for its word count (and the collection of parents’ parents), today’s Bee is unremarkable: no bingo, pesky suffixes, rare letters, etc.
Beeatrice donned her witch hat again today at the opening screen (“How many words can you make…?”), again at the “Welcome Back” screen, and at the Genius screen, but not at Queen Bee. See all of Beeatrice’s holiday hats by peeking into her closet HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
Perhaps the biggest solving challenge today was coming up with five nicknames for a grandfather. The Bee lexicon has nine of them (including today's five shown here in italics): gramp, grampa, grandad, grandaddy, granddad, granddaddy, grandpa, grandpapa, and grandpop. The Bee lexicon also has gram, gramma, gran, granny, and of course nana, who always brings naan when she visits.
WORD NOTES
Today’s Bee has...
Two mythical creatures: dragon, gorgonMore mythical creatures and beings from the Spelling Bee lexicon are the LexiTopic on Myth & Magic, HERE. Two chemical elements: argon, radonAll the chemical elements in the Spelling Bee lexicon are listed in the LexiTopic reports on Chemistry (HERE) and Geology & Geography (HERE). The WordPlay report on Chemical Elements in the Spelling Bee (HERE) explains which chemical elements are possible in the Bee, which aren't, and lists those that might show up someday. Three musical words: organ, raga, rondoAll the words from the Bee lexicon related to music and musicians are in the LexiTopic report on Music, HERE. Two units of currency: agora, randAll the Spelling Bee words related to currency and money in general are in the LexiTopic report on Economics & Finance, HERE. Several clipped words: grad, gran, orang, porn and porno, prop, randoLexiConnexxions has collected all the words like this from the Spelling Bee lexicon into a WordPlay report on Clipped or Shortened Words and Phrases, HERE. Two acronyms: gorp, radarLexiConnexxions has compiled similar words from the Bee lexicon into a WordPlay report on Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Initialisms, HERE. Several words related to religions or beliefs: propaganda, rood, darn (euphemism for damn, meaning to condemn to hell, which is a fictional construct in several belief systems)All the Spelling Bee words related to religious beliefs and practices are in the LexiTopics report on Belief Systems, HERE. A toponym: angora. With a small a, angora is the hair of the Angora rabbit or Angora goat, or a yarn of Angora rabbit hair used especially for knitting. (In the names of animals -- Angora cat, Angora rabbit, Angora goat – the adjective is proper.) The word derives from Ankara (historically known as Angora), in present-day Turkey.All the Bee words derived from place names (real or fictional) are in the WordPlay report on Toponyms, HERE. Two eponyms: gorgon and grog. A gorgon is an ugly or repulsive woman, so called from the three snake-haired Gorgons of Greek mythology, sisters who were so repulsive that a mere glance would turn one to stone. The alcoholic drink known as grog (and words related to its effects, such as groggy) has an interesting history. Etymology.com explains that the word grog, which first meant an “alcoholic drink diluted with water," dates from 1749 and was “supposedly a reference to Old Grog, nickname of Edward Vernon (1684-1757), British admiral who wore a grogram cloak and who in August 1740 ordered his sailors’ rum to be diluted. Eventually the word came popularly to mean ‘strong drink’ of any kind. The term “grog shop” meaning “tavern where alcohol is sold by the glass” is from 1790.” The same source adds that “George Washington's older half-brother Lawrence served under Vernon in the Caribbean and renamed the family's Hunting Creek Plantation in Virginia for him in 1740, calling it Mount Vernon” and explains that grogram is “coarse, stiff textile fabric, 1560s, from French gros grain, ‘coarse grain or texture’.”All the Bee words derived from personal or brand names (real or fictional) are in the WordPlay report on Eponyms, HERE. Did you know this history of propaganda? From etymonline.com: propaganda (n.): 1718, "committee of cardinals in charge of foreign missions of the Catholic Church," short for Congregatio de Propaganda Fide "congregation for propagating the faith," a committee of cardinals established 1622 by Gregory XV to supervise foreign missions. The word is properly the ablative fem. gerundive of Latin propagare "set forward, extend, spread, increase" (related word: propagation). Hence, "any movement or organization to propagate some practice or ideology" (1790). The modern political sense ("dissemination of information intended to promote a political point of view") dates from World War I, originally not pejorative or implying bias or deliberate deception. Meaning "material or information propagated to advance a cause, etc." is from 1929. Related: Propagandic.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3096 R A D G N O PToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3096 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/29/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its two pangrams GRANDPOP and PROPAGANDA make their fourth appearance today. No words were added to the Bee lexicon, and none discontinued. But several of today’s answers have some Bee history. Five words were excluded before being accepted: dorado (26x), gorp (1x), grappa (1x), raga (3x), and rando (12x).
Did you look for parador? It was used 10x (including in one puzzle with today’s letter set) before being discontinued in 2025. LexiConnexxions tracks and records the histories of Bee words; all the reports are listed HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Another 50+ Big Bee today, the 18th so far this month, continuing the October trend of larger than average solution sets. The average puzzle length so far in Oct is 47.38, which is much higher than annual averages (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). So far in October, the median word count is 51, the modes 56 and 51.
Except for its word count (and the collection of parents’ parents), today’s Bee is unremarkable: no bingo, pesky suffixes, rare letters, etc.
Beeatrice donned her witch hat again today at the opening screen (“How many words can you make…?”), again at the “Welcome Back” screen, and at the Genius screen, but not at Queen Bee. See all of Beeatrice’s holiday hats by peeking into her closet HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
Perhaps the biggest solving challenge today was coming up with five nicknames for a grandfather. The Bee lexicon has nine of them (including today's five shown here in italics): gramp, grampa, grandad, grandaddy, granddad, granddaddy, grandpa, grandpapa, and grandpop. The Bee lexicon also has gram, gramma, gran, granny, and of course nana, who always brings naan when she visits.
WORD NOTES
Today’s Bee has...
Two mythical creatures: dragon, gorgonMore mythical creatures and beings from the Spelling Bee lexicon are the LexiTopic on Myth & Magic, HERE. Two chemical elements: argon, radonAll the chemical elements in the Spelling Bee lexicon are listed in the LexiTopic reports on Chemistry (HERE) and Geology & Geography (HERE). The WordPlay report on Chemical Elements in the Spelling Bee (HERE) explains which chemical elements are possible in the Bee, which aren't, and lists those that might show up someday. Three musical words: organ, raga, rondoAll the words from the Bee lexicon related to music and musicians are in the LexiTopic report on Music, HERE. Two units of currency: agora, randAll the Spelling Bee words related to currency and money in general are in the LexiTopic report on Economics & Finance, HERE. Several clipped words: grad, gran, orang, porn and porno, prop, randoLexiConnexxions has collected all the words like this from the Spelling Bee lexicon into a WordPlay report on Clipped or Shortened Words and Phrases, HERE. Two acronyms: gorp, radarLexiConnexxions has compiled similar words from the Bee lexicon into a WordPlay report on Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Initialisms, HERE. Several words related to religions or beliefs: propaganda, rood, darn (euphemism for damn, meaning to condemn to hell, which is a fictional construct in several belief systems)All the Spelling Bee words related to religious beliefs and practices are in the LexiTopics report on Belief Systems, HERE. A toponym: angora. With a small a, angora is the hair of the Angora rabbit or Angora goat, or a yarn of Angora rabbit hair used especially for knitting. (In the names of animals -- Angora cat, Angora rabbit, Angora goat – the adjective is proper.) The word derives from Ankara (historically known as Angora), in present-day Turkey.All the Bee words derived from place names (real or fictional) are in the WordPlay report on Toponyms, HERE. Two eponyms: gorgon and grog. A gorgon is an ugly or repulsive woman, so called from the three snake-haired Gorgons of Greek mythology, sisters who were so repulsive that a mere glance would turn one to stone. The alcoholic drink known as grog (and words related to its effects, such as groggy) has an interesting history. Etymology.com explains that the word grog, which first meant an “alcoholic drink diluted with water," dates from 1749 and was “supposedly a reference to Old Grog, nickname of Edward Vernon (1684-1757), British admiral who wore a grogram cloak and who in August 1740 ordered his sailors’ rum to be diluted. Eventually the word came popularly to mean ‘strong drink’ of any kind. The term “grog shop” meaning “tavern where alcohol is sold by the glass” is from 1790.” The same source adds that “George Washington's older half-brother Lawrence served under Vernon in the Caribbean and renamed the family's Hunting Creek Plantation in Virginia for him in 1740, calling it Mount Vernon” and explains that grogram is “coarse, stiff textile fabric, 1560s, from French gros grain, ‘coarse grain or texture’.”All the Bee words derived from personal or brand names (real or fictional) are in the WordPlay report on Eponyms, HERE. Did you know this history of propaganda? From etymonline.com: propaganda (n.): 1718, "committee of cardinals in charge of foreign missions of the Catholic Church," short for Congregatio de Propaganda Fide "congregation for propagating the faith," a committee of cardinals established 1622 by Gregory XV to supervise foreign missions. The word is properly the ablative fem. gerundive of Latin propagare "set forward, extend, spread, increase" (related word: propagation). Hence, "any movement or organization to propagate some practice or ideology" (1790). The modern political sense ("dissemination of information intended to promote a political point of view") dates from World War I, originally not pejorative or implying bias or deliberate deception. Meaning "material or information propagated to advance a cause, etc." is from 1929. Related: Propagandic.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-28
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3095 I B D E G L OToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3095 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/28/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram OBLIGED are used for the second time today. No words were added to the Bee lexicon, and none removed.
Two of today’s solutions were OUT before they were IN: gigged had been disallowed 3x before being accepted in 2022, and iodide was excluded 10x before being accepted in 2023. (Note: gigging was also excluded 8x before being accepted in 2022; Sam must have re-thought gig as a verb around that time.)
Bee solvers always look for lido whenever it is possible; that word was used three times in 2018 (early days for the Spelling Bee) before being left high and dry in 2019.
DESIGN NOTES Another Very Big Bee: With 71 words, today’s Bee is not a record-breaker (41 Bees have had more words), but it continues the October trend of having much larger than average solution sets. The average puzzle length so far in October is 47.18, which is much higher than annual averages (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). So far in October, the median word count is 51, the modes 56 and 51. Of the 28 Bees so far this month, 17 have had 50 or more words, and only 6 have had fewer than 30 words.
Another -ED Bee, but that’s OK: September had more than its share of -ED Bees (9 of 30 puzzles, or 30.00%, compared to annual averages of 16.71% in 2025 and 14.76 in 2024. Today’s -ED Bee is only the fourth so far this month.
Beeatrice donned her witch hat today at the opening screen (“How many words can you make…?”), again at the “Welcome Back” screen, and at the Genius screen, but not at Queen Bee. See all of Beeatrice’s holiday hats by peeking into her closet HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
The -ED suffix offers a mildly pleasant challenge for Bee solvers, in that it requires us to “see” words that are not, or cannot, be in the puzzle. Of today’s 71 words, 26 use the -ED suffix, but a number of those answers cannot be formed simply by adding -ED to another answer. A solver must “see”…
Six words that end with Y (no Y in today’s Bee: belly, bloody, body, dolly, eddy, lobby) to which -ED must be added to form answers (bellied, bloodied, bodied, dollied, eddied, lobbied) and Four 3-letter words (inadmissible in the Bee due to length: die, lid, lie, oil) to which -ED must be added to form answers (died, lidded lied, oiled).
WORD NOTES
Today’s Bee includes an eponym, ollie, which Merriam-Webster defines as “a maneuver in skateboarding in which the skater kicks the tail of the board down while jumping in order to make the board pop into the air, or a maneuver in snowboarding in which the rider transfers weight from the front to the back foot to snap the board up off the ground; also, to execute an ollie.” M-W advises that the maneuver is named for Ollie, nickname of American skateboarder Alan Gelfand. The Bee lexicon includes a large number of eponyms; LexiConnexxions has gathered them into a WordPlay report HERE.
Shall we dance? According to various dictionaries, a gigolo may be a paid escort, sex worker, or dance partner, and it’s that last meaning from which the word derives. While the word gigolo looks like something from Italian, M-W unabridged tells us that it is French, a “back-formation from gigolette, [a] girl who frequents public dances, [a] prostitute, from giguer to dance, to jig.”
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3095 I B D E G L OToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3095 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/28/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram OBLIGED are used for the second time today. No words were added to the Bee lexicon, and none removed.
Two of today’s solutions were OUT before they were IN: gigged had been disallowed 3x before being accepted in 2022, and iodide was excluded 10x before being accepted in 2023. (Note: gigging was also excluded 8x before being accepted in 2022; Sam must have re-thought gig as a verb around that time.)
Bee solvers always look for lido whenever it is possible; that word was used three times in 2018 (early days for the Spelling Bee) before being left high and dry in 2019.
DESIGN NOTES Another Very Big Bee: With 71 words, today’s Bee is not a record-breaker (41 Bees have had more words), but it continues the October trend of having much larger than average solution sets. The average puzzle length so far in October is 47.18, which is much higher than annual averages (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). So far in October, the median word count is 51, the modes 56 and 51. Of the 28 Bees so far this month, 17 have had 50 or more words, and only 6 have had fewer than 30 words.
Another -ED Bee, but that’s OK: September had more than its share of -ED Bees (9 of 30 puzzles, or 30.00%, compared to annual averages of 16.71% in 2025 and 14.76 in 2024. Today’s -ED Bee is only the fourth so far this month.
Beeatrice donned her witch hat today at the opening screen (“How many words can you make…?”), again at the “Welcome Back” screen, and at the Genius screen, but not at Queen Bee. See all of Beeatrice’s holiday hats by peeking into her closet HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
The -ED suffix offers a mildly pleasant challenge for Bee solvers, in that it requires us to “see” words that are not, or cannot, be in the puzzle. Of today’s 71 words, 26 use the -ED suffix, but a number of those answers cannot be formed simply by adding -ED to another answer. A solver must “see”…
Six words that end with Y (no Y in today’s Bee: belly, bloody, body, dolly, eddy, lobby) to which -ED must be added to form answers (bellied, bloodied, bodied, dollied, eddied, lobbied) and Four 3-letter words (inadmissible in the Bee due to length: die, lid, lie, oil) to which -ED must be added to form answers (died, lidded lied, oiled).
WORD NOTES
Today’s Bee includes an eponym, ollie, which Merriam-Webster defines as “a maneuver in skateboarding in which the skater kicks the tail of the board down while jumping in order to make the board pop into the air, or a maneuver in snowboarding in which the rider transfers weight from the front to the back foot to snap the board up off the ground; also, to execute an ollie.” M-W advises that the maneuver is named for Ollie, nickname of American skateboarder Alan Gelfand. The Bee lexicon includes a large number of eponyms; LexiConnexxions has gathered them into a WordPlay report HERE.
Shall we dance? According to various dictionaries, a gigolo may be a paid escort, sex worker, or dance partner, and it’s that last meaning from which the word derives. While the word gigolo looks like something from Italian, M-W unabridged tells us that it is French, a “back-formation from gigolette, [a] girl who frequents public dances, [a] prostitute, from giguer to dance, to jig.”
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-27
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3094 A E H N O P YToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3094 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/27/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its single pangram PAYPHONE make their fifth appearance today. Unless the Bee editor changes his practice of never using a letter set more than five times, we’ll never see this one again.
No new words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none were taken away.
One of the words in today’s solution set, anyhoo, was excluded from two Bees before being accepted in 2019.
Did you look for nappy, opah, or yean? They have all been discontinued from the Bee lexicon: nappy was removed after a single use very early in Bee history (August 2018), and the fish opah was discontinued in 2023 after 17 uses. The lovely old word yean (defined by Merriam-Webster as “to bring forth young —used of a sheep or goat”) has a more complicated history: it was excluded from one Bee (May 15, 2018, the seventh Bee ever), then used in ten Bees, then discontinued in 2020.
To date, 620 of the Spelling Bee’s 11,238 words have some sort of “history,” as LexiConnexxions has documented HERE.
See more about anyhoo and nappy in the WORD NOTES, below.
DESIGN NOTES
The Spelling Bee mascot Beeatrice – she’s the little cartoon Bee – has been flirting with us since mid-October, donning her little witch’s hat now and then. She usually reserves her Hallowe’en hat for October 31, but this year she brought it out on Oct 17th, wore it until the 21st (when she reverted to her mortarboard), then brought it out again yesterday when she got to Genius, and again at the “Welcome Back” screen (that displays if you leave the puzzle and then return). Today, she flaunted the little pointy hat at opening screen (“How many words can you make…?”), again at the “Welcome Back” screen, and at the Genius screen … but not when she reached Queen Bee. LexiConnexxions has collected all of Beeatrice’s festive chapeaux, including the Hallowe’en hat, HERE.
WORD NOTES
Those aren’t real words! … Wait, are they? Words like anyhoo, yahoo, and yeah often cause some consternation among Bee solvers who would rather not see slang and “pronunciation spellings” in the Bee. Whether we like them or not, though, they are “real words,” words that we as English speakers and writers have used so extensively that lexicographers have recorded our use of them in standard dictionaries of American English. Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive; that is, they describe how we actually write and speak, rather than prescribing how we ought to write and speak.
Dictionaries also record the history of our words, and it’s interesting to learn that some of these informal words have been used for a very long time, indeed. Of anyhoo, M-W says “probably originally jocular appropriation of Scots and Ulster onie-hoo anyhow” and dates it to 1850. Of yeah, M-W says “by alteration [of yes]” and dates it to 1863. And yahoo is even older and has a perhaps more distinguished history than many of us might know; M-W defines yahoo as “a boorish, crass, or stupid person” and explains that it is “from Yahoo: a member of a race of brutes in Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) who have the form and all the vices of humans.” And yes, Swift made it up. LexiConnexxions has gathered all the Bee words that, like yahoo, come to our language from literature or film; they are recorded in a WordPlay report HERE. Every word in every language was “made up” sometime, by someone, for some purpose. It’s how language happens.
Did you know? Today’s Bee has...
A Totally British Spelling: aeonLexiConnexxions has gathered all the Bee words with British spellings or from British English in a special WordPlay report, HERE. Five family titles: nana, nanny, papa, pappy, poppaLexiConnexxions has indexed all the family-related Bee words in the LexiTopic People: Individuals & Groups, HERE.
A hidden boat: Within the hailing word ahoy is the hoy, “a small usually sloop-rigged coasting ship” or “a heavy barge for bulky cargo”LexiConnexxions has indexed all the nautical Bee words in the LexiTopic Nautical & Maritime, HERE.
Two words of chance: happen and happy, both deriving from hap, meaning chance or fortuneLexiConnexxions has indexed all the Bee words related to chance and events in the LexiTopic Events & Incidents, HERE.
Why not nappy? Bee solvers from the UK and Australia – who know and use nappy as a shortened form of napkin, meaning a baby’s diaper – are quite reasonably surprised that nappy is not in the Bee. The word has a vile racist history in the United States and elsewhere, and M-W acknowledges this by adding the label “sometimes offensive, of hair” to its first definition “naturally coarse and tightly coiled: kinky.” Etymonline expands on the dehumanizing aspect of the word: “Meaning ‘fuzzy, kinky,’ especially used in colloquial or derogatory reference to the hair of black people, is by 1840. It also was used of sheep.”
Those who work with textiles are familiar with the nap of a fabric, that is, “a hairy, fuzzy, or downy surface (as on a fabric)” and may use “nap” as a verb meaning “to raise a nap on (fabric or leather).” A fabric with a substantial nap may be described as “nappy.” Perhaps when context makes clear that the reference is to a specific textile, the word may be acceptable.
That foamy or fuzzy texture shows up in the Scots word nappy meaning “liquor, specifically: ale” which may derive from an obsolete adjective form meaning “foaming.” And etymonline tells us that nappy was used “Earlier, of ale, ‘having a head, foamy’ (mid-15c.), hence, in slang, ‘slightly intoxicated’ (1721)”.
The word nappy also has an unrelated meaning, that of “a rimless shallow open serving dish” (per M-W, from English dialect nap bowl, from Middle English, from Old English hnǣpp; akin to Old High German hnapf bowl).
All of this leads to this question: If a word has one offensive meaning among several inoffensive meanings, should it be excluded from the Bee? Certainly the Bee lexicon includes a large number of words that, in some contexts, are vilely offensive, vulgar, disparaging, derogatory, or abusive (and are labeled thus in standard dictionaries), but in other contexts are innocuous. Many players cringe when idiot, moron, or imbecile show up; others object to slang and vulgar terms for bodily functions and anatomy, even if they have other innocuous meanings.
LexiConnexxions has identified dozens of words for which M-W labels at least one definition as offensive, vulgar, disparaging, derogatory, etc., as compiled in a WordPlay report HERE. A handful of these words have (like nappy) been discontinued, but the rest remain active in the Bee lexicon and cause distress for some players.
While we may disagree with the editor’s decisions for any of these troublesome words (especially those that have both vile and innocuous meanings), he (and his testing panel) must include in the (de)selection process some consideration of how players will perceive them, especially in a puzzle with no context. There is no easy answer for this complex issue.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3094 A E H N O P YToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3094 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/27/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its single pangram PAYPHONE make their fifth appearance today. Unless the Bee editor changes his practice of never using a letter set more than five times, we’ll never see this one again.
No new words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none were taken away.
One of the words in today’s solution set, anyhoo, was excluded from two Bees before being accepted in 2019.
Did you look for nappy, opah, or yean? They have all been discontinued from the Bee lexicon: nappy was removed after a single use very early in Bee history (August 2018), and the fish opah was discontinued in 2023 after 17 uses. The lovely old word yean (defined by Merriam-Webster as “to bring forth young —used of a sheep or goat”) has a more complicated history: it was excluded from one Bee (May 15, 2018, the seventh Bee ever), then used in ten Bees, then discontinued in 2020.
To date, 620 of the Spelling Bee’s 11,238 words have some sort of “history,” as LexiConnexxions has documented HERE.
See more about anyhoo and nappy in the WORD NOTES, below.
DESIGN NOTES
The Spelling Bee mascot Beeatrice – she’s the little cartoon Bee – has been flirting with us since mid-October, donning her little witch’s hat now and then. She usually reserves her Hallowe’en hat for October 31, but this year she brought it out on Oct 17th, wore it until the 21st (when she reverted to her mortarboard), then brought it out again yesterday when she got to Genius, and again at the “Welcome Back” screen (that displays if you leave the puzzle and then return). Today, she flaunted the little pointy hat at opening screen (“How many words can you make…?”), again at the “Welcome Back” screen, and at the Genius screen … but not when she reached Queen Bee. LexiConnexxions has collected all of Beeatrice’s festive chapeaux, including the Hallowe’en hat, HERE.
WORD NOTES
Those aren’t real words! … Wait, are they? Words like anyhoo, yahoo, and yeah often cause some consternation among Bee solvers who would rather not see slang and “pronunciation spellings” in the Bee. Whether we like them or not, though, they are “real words,” words that we as English speakers and writers have used so extensively that lexicographers have recorded our use of them in standard dictionaries of American English. Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive; that is, they describe how we actually write and speak, rather than prescribing how we ought to write and speak.
Dictionaries also record the history of our words, and it’s interesting to learn that some of these informal words have been used for a very long time, indeed. Of anyhoo, M-W says “probably originally jocular appropriation of Scots and Ulster onie-hoo anyhow” and dates it to 1850. Of yeah, M-W says “by alteration [of yes]” and dates it to 1863. And yahoo is even older and has a perhaps more distinguished history than many of us might know; M-W defines yahoo as “a boorish, crass, or stupid person” and explains that it is “from Yahoo: a member of a race of brutes in Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) who have the form and all the vices of humans.” And yes, Swift made it up. LexiConnexxions has gathered all the Bee words that, like yahoo, come to our language from literature or film; they are recorded in a WordPlay report HERE. Every word in every language was “made up” sometime, by someone, for some purpose. It’s how language happens.
Did you know? Today’s Bee has...
A Totally British Spelling: aeonLexiConnexxions has gathered all the Bee words with British spellings or from British English in a special WordPlay report, HERE. Five family titles: nana, nanny, papa, pappy, poppaLexiConnexxions has indexed all the family-related Bee words in the LexiTopic People: Individuals & Groups, HERE.
A hidden boat: Within the hailing word ahoy is the hoy, “a small usually sloop-rigged coasting ship” or “a heavy barge for bulky cargo”LexiConnexxions has indexed all the nautical Bee words in the LexiTopic Nautical & Maritime, HERE.
Two words of chance: happen and happy, both deriving from hap, meaning chance or fortuneLexiConnexxions has indexed all the Bee words related to chance and events in the LexiTopic Events & Incidents, HERE.
Why not nappy? Bee solvers from the UK and Australia – who know and use nappy as a shortened form of napkin, meaning a baby’s diaper – are quite reasonably surprised that nappy is not in the Bee. The word has a vile racist history in the United States and elsewhere, and M-W acknowledges this by adding the label “sometimes offensive, of hair” to its first definition “naturally coarse and tightly coiled: kinky.” Etymonline expands on the dehumanizing aspect of the word: “Meaning ‘fuzzy, kinky,’ especially used in colloquial or derogatory reference to the hair of black people, is by 1840. It also was used of sheep.”
Those who work with textiles are familiar with the nap of a fabric, that is, “a hairy, fuzzy, or downy surface (as on a fabric)” and may use “nap” as a verb meaning “to raise a nap on (fabric or leather).” A fabric with a substantial nap may be described as “nappy.” Perhaps when context makes clear that the reference is to a specific textile, the word may be acceptable.
That foamy or fuzzy texture shows up in the Scots word nappy meaning “liquor, specifically: ale” which may derive from an obsolete adjective form meaning “foaming.” And etymonline tells us that nappy was used “Earlier, of ale, ‘having a head, foamy’ (mid-15c.), hence, in slang, ‘slightly intoxicated’ (1721)”.
The word nappy also has an unrelated meaning, that of “a rimless shallow open serving dish” (per M-W, from English dialect nap bowl, from Middle English, from Old English hnǣpp; akin to Old High German hnapf bowl).
All of this leads to this question: If a word has one offensive meaning among several inoffensive meanings, should it be excluded from the Bee? Certainly the Bee lexicon includes a large number of words that, in some contexts, are vilely offensive, vulgar, disparaging, derogatory, or abusive (and are labeled thus in standard dictionaries), but in other contexts are innocuous. Many players cringe when idiot, moron, or imbecile show up; others object to slang and vulgar terms for bodily functions and anatomy, even if they have other innocuous meanings.
LexiConnexxions has identified dozens of words for which M-W labels at least one definition as offensive, vulgar, disparaging, derogatory, etc., as compiled in a WordPlay report HERE. A handful of these words have (like nappy) been discontinued, but the rest remain active in the Bee lexicon and cause distress for some players.
While we may disagree with the editor’s decisions for any of these troublesome words (especially those that have both vile and innocuous meanings), he (and his testing panel) must include in the (de)selection process some consideration of how players will perceive them, especially in a puzzle with no context. There is no easy answer for this complex issue.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-26
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3093 L G H I N T YToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3093 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/26/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram NIGHTLY make their third appearance today. No new words were added to the lexicon, and none removed.
Two of today’s answers have Bee “history”: niggly was disallowed 8x before being added (very recently, on Oct 9), and titling was IN 3x (2023), OUT 2x (2024), then brought back IN (2025).
DESIGN NOTES
With 43 words (and after a series of 50+ Bees), this Bee feels Just Right.
Today’s pangram is one of just 42 (of 1908) pangrams to have only one vowel plus Y (where Y functions as a vowel, not a consonant).
Today’s Bee is only the 17th Bee to include both I+N+G and L+Y; the 16th such Bee was very recent, on 2026-10-09.
Beeatrice had her witch’s hat on again today at the Genius level, and at the “Welcome Back” screen (that displays if you leave the puzzle and then return). She usually reserves her Hallowe’en hat for October 31, but this year she brought it out on Oct 17th, wore it until the 21st (when she reverted to her mortarboard), then donned it again today.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee is a suffix-fest: 29 of the 43 words end with Y, LY, or ING, or a combination thereof. And the only way to figure out which words will have the suffixes is to try them all. Some stick, some don’t.
As always with -ING, one must “see” words that cannot be in the puzzle in order to make all the answers, because one must “see” root verbs that end in E (not in today’s Bee), or are three letters long (can’t be in any Bee). Some enjoy the challenge, some don’t. LexiConnexxions has prepared a guide to "Solv-ING Strategies" HERE to help you in BEE-ING a better solver.
The presence of ninthly reminds us to look for numbers (and related forms). Finding ninthly might have been a challenge because the root ninth does not include the center letter L.
WORD NOTES
Some of the words we use every day are very old. For example, filth; it’s an old construction from “foul” plus the -TH suffix, which etymonline.com tells us is a “suffix forming nouns of action, state, or quality from verbs or adjectives." Similar words that did not survive to modern times include spilth (spillage, especially that which is poured out lavishly), stilth (silence), and wrengthe (wrongness, crookedness, distortion).
One of today’s answers, tilth, is of the same ilk, formed from the verb till (to cultivate soil) plus that -TH suffix. While the word tillage is in common use meaning cultivation in general (e.g., Farmer Brown has 1500 acres under tillage), tilth is used to refer to the particular (desirable) quality of soil. While it's a very old word, it is in current use: See, for example, any number of recent instructional videos on YouTube, easily found just by searching (in YT) on that one word tilth.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3093 L G H I N T YToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3093 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/26/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram NIGHTLY make their third appearance today. No new words were added to the lexicon, and none removed.
Two of today’s answers have Bee “history”: niggly was disallowed 8x before being added (very recently, on Oct 9), and titling was IN 3x (2023), OUT 2x (2024), then brought back IN (2025).
DESIGN NOTES
With 43 words (and after a series of 50+ Bees), this Bee feels Just Right.
Today’s pangram is one of just 42 (of 1908) pangrams to have only one vowel plus Y (where Y functions as a vowel, not a consonant).
Today’s Bee is only the 17th Bee to include both I+N+G and L+Y; the 16th such Bee was very recent, on 2026-10-09.
Beeatrice had her witch’s hat on again today at the Genius level, and at the “Welcome Back” screen (that displays if you leave the puzzle and then return). She usually reserves her Hallowe’en hat for October 31, but this year she brought it out on Oct 17th, wore it until the 21st (when she reverted to her mortarboard), then donned it again today.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee is a suffix-fest: 29 of the 43 words end with Y, LY, or ING, or a combination thereof. And the only way to figure out which words will have the suffixes is to try them all. Some stick, some don’t.
As always with -ING, one must “see” words that cannot be in the puzzle in order to make all the answers, because one must “see” root verbs that end in E (not in today’s Bee), or are three letters long (can’t be in any Bee). Some enjoy the challenge, some don’t. LexiConnexxions has prepared a guide to "Solv-ING Strategies" HERE to help you in BEE-ING a better solver.
The presence of ninthly reminds us to look for numbers (and related forms). Finding ninthly might have been a challenge because the root ninth does not include the center letter L.
WORD NOTES
Some of the words we use every day are very old. For example, filth; it’s an old construction from “foul” plus the -TH suffix, which etymonline.com tells us is a “suffix forming nouns of action, state, or quality from verbs or adjectives." Similar words that did not survive to modern times include spilth (spillage, especially that which is poured out lavishly), stilth (silence), and wrengthe (wrongness, crookedness, distortion).
One of today’s answers, tilth, is of the same ilk, formed from the verb till (to cultivate soil) plus that -TH suffix. While the word tillage is in common use meaning cultivation in general (e.g., Farmer Brown has 1500 acres under tillage), tilth is used to refer to the particular (desirable) quality of soil. While it's a very old word, it is in current use: See, for example, any number of recent instructional videos on YouTube, easily found just by searching (in YT) on that one word tilth.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-25
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3092 M A B I L N OToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/s/3092 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s Bee introduces a new letter set with two pangrams, BIBLOMANIA and BINOMIAL, and another new word, monobob, that had been excluded from 22 Bees before being accepted.
Three other words in today’s solution set had been excluded before being accepted: lima (6x), liminal (1x), and manila (1x).
No words were discontinued today.
Did you look for bambino? It was used in one Bee (2023) before being discontinued in 2024.
DESIGN NOTES
With 66 words, the Oct 25 Bee was another long one, the 16th so far in Oct with 50+ words, and the 6th with 60+ words.
28 of the 66 words (42%) end with a vowel.
WORD NOTES
This Bee includes...
An eponym: ammonia, which, according to Merriam-Webster, is “borrowed from New Latin, derivative based on Latin sal ammōniacus ‘rock salt,’ literally, ‘salt of Ammon,’ from ammōniacus ‘of Ammon,’ borrowed from Greek ammōniakós, derivative of Ámmōn, an Egyptian deity identified by the Greeks with Zeus, borrowed from Egyptian ỉmn; from its having been extracted near an oracle of Ammon near the Siwa oasis in Egypt’ [phew!]
A toponym: manila, or less commonly manilla: from Manila, capital of the Philippines, from which we have manilla hemp and manilla paper. BTW, while manila is the more common spelling, manilla is also acceptable.
Several onomatopoetic words: blam, bomb, boom
Several gendered words: mailman, mama, mamma, momma, oilman [Are imam and lama male-only callings?]LexiConnexxions has indexed all the gendered Bee words in the LexiTopic People: Individuals and Groups, HERE. Several words from belief systems: anima, imam, lama, limbo, mammon, manna, perhaps nimbiLexiConnexxions has indexed all the Bee words related to religions in the LexiTopic Belief Systems, HERE. A small menagerie of animal words: animal, lamb, llama, mamba, mammal, mammalianLexiConnexxions has indexed all the Bee words related to animals in the LexiTopic Animals, HERE. A garden of botanical words: abloom, bamboo, bloom, lamina, laminal, lima, limb, manila [hemp]LexiConnexxions has indexed all the Bee words related to plants in the LexiTopic Botanicals, HERE. Several clipped words or phrases: ammo, amnio, lima [bean], limo, mini, monoLexiConnexxions has gathered up all the clipped words and phrases in the Bee lexicon in a WordPlay report, HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s Bee introduces a new letter set with two pangrams, BIBLOMANIA and BINOMIAL, and another new word, monobob, that had been excluded from 22 Bees before being accepted.
Three other words in today’s solution set had been excluded before being accepted: lima (6x), liminal (1x), and manila (1x).
No words were discontinued today.
Did you look for bambino? It was used in one Bee (2023) before being discontinued in 2024.
DESIGN NOTES
With 66 words, the Oct 25 Bee was another long one, the 16th so far in Oct with 50+ words, and the 6th with 60+ words.
28 of the 66 words (42%) end with a vowel.
WORD NOTES
This Bee includes...
An eponym: ammonia, which, according to Merriam-Webster, is “borrowed from New Latin, derivative based on Latin sal ammōniacus ‘rock salt,’ literally, ‘salt of Ammon,’ from ammōniacus ‘of Ammon,’ borrowed from Greek ammōniakós, derivative of Ámmōn, an Egyptian deity identified by the Greeks with Zeus, borrowed from Egyptian ỉmn; from its having been extracted near an oracle of Ammon near the Siwa oasis in Egypt’ [phew!]
A toponym: manila, or less commonly manilla: from Manila, capital of the Philippines, from which we have manilla hemp and manilla paper. BTW, while manila is the more common spelling, manilla is also acceptable.
Several onomatopoetic words: blam, bomb, boom
Several gendered words: mailman, mama, mamma, momma, oilman [Are imam and lama male-only callings?]LexiConnexxions has indexed all the gendered Bee words in the LexiTopic People: Individuals and Groups, HERE. Several words from belief systems: anima, imam, lama, limbo, mammon, manna, perhaps nimbiLexiConnexxions has indexed all the Bee words related to religions in the LexiTopic Belief Systems, HERE. A small menagerie of animal words: animal, lamb, llama, mamba, mammal, mammalianLexiConnexxions has indexed all the Bee words related to animals in the LexiTopic Animals, HERE. A garden of botanical words: abloom, bamboo, bloom, lamina, laminal, lima, limb, manila [hemp]LexiConnexxions has indexed all the Bee words related to plants in the LexiTopic Botanicals, HERE. Several clipped words or phrases: ammo, amnio, lima [bean], limo, mini, monoLexiConnexxions has gathered up all the clipped words and phrases in the Bee lexicon in a WordPlay report, HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-24
NEW RESOURCES AT LEXICONNEXXIONS
WordPlay Wanderings: BETHEL Though the word bethel was discontinued from the Spelling Bee long ago, solvers continue to look for it whenever it is possible in the Bee, perhaps because of its prominence in one of the masterpieces of Western literature, Moby-Dick. Learn more about bethels HERE.
WordPlay Rogues Report: Ye Olde Wordes This new WordPlay report compiles and defines words in the Spelling Bee lexicon that standard dictionaries label as archaic, obsolete, or old-fashioned. Bee solvers may find this compilation of interest because of the Spelling Bee rule that “obscure” words are not used in the Bee. Review them HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3091 P A C I L R TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3091 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram, PRACTICAL, make their second appearance today. No new words were added to the lexicon, and none removed.
Five of today’s words were OUT before they were IN: capri (13x), palapa (26x), palp (4x), priapic (4x), and tipi (55x, the most OUTs of any OUT-IN word.)
Did you look for apical? It was used in two Bees before being discontinued. Ptui.
LexiConnexxions reports all changes to the Bee lexicon HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
With 50 words, today’s Bee is another long one. The average puzzle length so far in Oct is 46.33, which is much higher than annual averages (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). So far in October, the median word count is 51, the modes 56 and 51. Maybe switch to decaf, Sam??
Does today’s Bee feel familiar? It should. Today's puzzle shares five letters – A I L P R – with the Bee of October 21, and nine words: appall, pail, palapa, pall, palp, papal, papilla, pill, and pillar.
WORD NOTES
AARGH! Where be piratical? Many players looked in vain for what would have been a second pangram – piratical – and in so looking, they might have missed piratic, which was included. What do the Bee-ish dictionaries say about these two words, relative to each other? All four give piratical as the more common form, with the Bee word piratic as less common:
M-W abridged: piratical; variants: or less commonly piraticM-W unabridged: piratical, or less commonly piraticCollins: piratical or piratic NOAD: piratical, derivative piratic
The Bee lexicon includes dozens of pairs and trios of variants like these, and for reasons we can’t know, the Bee editor sometimes chooses the less common variant.
What about those capri pants? The word capri was disallowed from 13 Bees before being added in January 2026, to the delight of those who had long looked for it, and to the puzzlement of those who suggested that it was properly used as a lower-case word only in the phrase capri pants. What do Bee-ish dictionaries say about it?
M-W abridged: Capri [the island], and capri pants as a phraseM-W unabridged: capri, often capitalized: 1 a wine… 2 a color… 3 capris plural : capri pants; plural noun, often capitalized CCollins: Capri [the island], capri pants… also: capris, plural nounNOAD: Capri [the island], capri pants (also capris) plural noun
What about hyphens? Isn’t the sound of little feet hyphenated? Yes, it is. Except when it isn't.
M-W abridged: pit-a-patM-W unabridged: pit-a-patCollins: pitapatNOAD: pit-a-pat (also pitapat)
In today’s Bee we have... A British word: prat, labeled by each of four Bee-ish dictionaries as British. See all the British Bee words HERE.
An eponym: priapic, from Latin priapus meaning “lecher” from Priapus, a Greek and Roman god of gardens and male generative power. See all the eponyms in the Bee lexicon HERE.
A toponym: capri, named for the Italian island of Capri. See all the toponyms in the Bee lexicon HERE.
Two musical terms: partial [overtone] and partita [a variation or instrumental suite]. See all the music-related words in the Bee lexicon here.
Two bird words: Yes, two. The little pipit (46 global species!), and pica, the desire to eat non-food (chalk, etc.). That second word pica is derived from pie, which means magpie, which derived (via a long route) from Latin picus, or woodpecker. See all the bird-related words in the Bee lexicon HERE.
NEW RESOURCES AT LEXICONNEXXIONS
WordPlay Wanderings: BETHEL Though the word bethel was discontinued from the Spelling Bee long ago, solvers continue to look for it whenever it is possible in the Bee, perhaps because of its prominence in one of the masterpieces of Western literature, Moby-Dick. Learn more about bethels HERE.
WordPlay Rogues Report: Ye Olde Wordes This new WordPlay report compiles and defines words in the Spelling Bee lexicon that standard dictionaries label as archaic, obsolete, or old-fashioned. Bee solvers may find this compilation of interest because of the Spelling Bee rule that “obscure” words are not used in the Bee. Review them HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3091 P A C I L R TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3091 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram, PRACTICAL, make their second appearance today. No new words were added to the lexicon, and none removed.
Five of today’s words were OUT before they were IN: capri (13x), palapa (26x), palp (4x), priapic (4x), and tipi (55x, the most OUTs of any OUT-IN word.)
Did you look for apical? It was used in two Bees before being discontinued. Ptui.
LexiConnexxions reports all changes to the Bee lexicon HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
With 50 words, today’s Bee is another long one. The average puzzle length so far in Oct is 46.33, which is much higher than annual averages (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). So far in October, the median word count is 51, the modes 56 and 51. Maybe switch to decaf, Sam??
Does today’s Bee feel familiar? It should. Today's puzzle shares five letters – A I L P R – with the Bee of October 21, and nine words: appall, pail, palapa, pall, palp, papal, papilla, pill, and pillar.
WORD NOTES
AARGH! Where be piratical? Many players looked in vain for what would have been a second pangram – piratical – and in so looking, they might have missed piratic, which was included. What do the Bee-ish dictionaries say about these two words, relative to each other? All four give piratical as the more common form, with the Bee word piratic as less common:
M-W abridged: piratical; variants: or less commonly piraticM-W unabridged: piratical, or less commonly piraticCollins: piratical or piratic NOAD: piratical, derivative piratic
The Bee lexicon includes dozens of pairs and trios of variants like these, and for reasons we can’t know, the Bee editor sometimes chooses the less common variant.
What about those capri pants? The word capri was disallowed from 13 Bees before being added in January 2026, to the delight of those who had long looked for it, and to the puzzlement of those who suggested that it was properly used as a lower-case word only in the phrase capri pants. What do Bee-ish dictionaries say about it?
M-W abridged: Capri [the island], and capri pants as a phraseM-W unabridged: capri, often capitalized: 1 a wine… 2 a color… 3 capris plural : capri pants; plural noun, often capitalized CCollins: Capri [the island], capri pants… also: capris, plural nounNOAD: Capri [the island], capri pants (also capris) plural noun
What about hyphens? Isn’t the sound of little feet hyphenated? Yes, it is. Except when it isn't.
M-W abridged: pit-a-patM-W unabridged: pit-a-patCollins: pitapatNOAD: pit-a-pat (also pitapat)
In today’s Bee we have... A British word: prat, labeled by each of four Bee-ish dictionaries as British. See all the British Bee words HERE.
An eponym: priapic, from Latin priapus meaning “lecher” from Priapus, a Greek and Roman god of gardens and male generative power. See all the eponyms in the Bee lexicon HERE.
A toponym: capri, named for the Italian island of Capri. See all the toponyms in the Bee lexicon HERE.
Two musical terms: partial [overtone] and partita [a variation or instrumental suite]. See all the music-related words in the Bee lexicon here.
Two bird words: Yes, two. The little pipit (46 global species!), and pica, the desire to eat non-food (chalk, etc.). That second word pica is derived from pie, which means magpie, which derived (via a long route) from Latin picus, or woodpecker. See all the bird-related words in the Bee lexicon HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-23
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3090 L C G I O T XToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3090/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its single pangram TOXICOLOGIC make their second appearance today.
No new words were added to the Bee lexicon, and no words were removed.
One word that is not in today’s solution set, ocotillo, was used in 10 Spelling Bees before being discontinued in 2022. It is one of many such IN-OUT words in Bee history, as LexiConnexxions has documented HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Of the 3090 Spelling Bees to date, today’s letter set is the 143rd to include the letter X. Only Z (125x), J (91x), Q (21x), and S (3x) have been in fewer letter sets. (We say "letter sets" and not "pangrams" because some letter sets produce multiple pangrams.) LexiConnexxions report on Spelling Bees with J Q S X or Z is HERE.
Rare Bee letters also play a factor in the very short list of Bees in which a particular letter is used only once in the solution set. According to sbsolver.com, today is only the 14th such Bee: only one answer includes the letter X. In that list of 14, the “lone” letters are J (5x), X (4x), V (2x), M (1x), G (1x), and Z (1x). Most of those solution sets (11 of 14) have <30 words.
With just 29 words, today’s Bee might have seemed a pleasant reprieve from the string of far-longer-than-average Bees we’ve had in recent weeks. The average puzzle length so far in Oct is 46.16, which is significantly higher than recent annual averages (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). (Also so far in October, the median word count is 51, the modes 56 and 61.)
The letter L shows up often as center letter; in fact, it is the fourth most frequently used center letter (after O, T, and A.)
WORD NOTES
The combining forms -log -logy (and their various forms) trace back to the Greek word logos, meaning reason, speech, and discourse. We see this root in English words about certain forms of oral or written expression (e.g., analogy), or in the names of specific doctrines, theories, or science (e.g., today’s pangram TOXICOLOGICAL). The Spelling Bee lexicon includes many words about speech or science that are built on this old, old word; just for fun, here they are (pangrams in ALL CAPS; words with asterisks have been discontinued):
analogy apology biologic BIOLOGICAL ecology ETHOLOGY* ETYMOLOGY gemology GENEALOGY geology GLACIOLOGY GYNECOLOGY homology HOROLOGIC horology HYDROLOGY IDEOLOGY illogic illogical ILLOGICALLY logic logical LOGICALLY mammalogy MIXOLOGY monolog MYTHOLOGY NONAPOLOGY oenology oncology ontology otology PHILOLOGY teleology THEOLOGY topology TO11 typology VIROLOGY zoologic ZOOLOGICAL
“The Bee includes too many ‘made-up’ words!” Well yes it does, because all words were “made up” some time, by somebody, for some purpose, weren’t they? Sometimes we know their stories, such as for today's word googol, the number that is one followed by 100 zeros. According to Merriam-Webster, googol was “coined by Milton Sirotta, born about 1929 nephew of Edward Kasner (†1955), American mathematician.” Also at that link, M-W’s “Did you Know?” paragraph explains the relationship – and the differences – between googol and the word for the search engine google or the act of using it. Interesting!
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3090 L C G I O T XToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3090/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its single pangram TOXICOLOGIC make their second appearance today.
No new words were added to the Bee lexicon, and no words were removed.
One word that is not in today’s solution set, ocotillo, was used in 10 Spelling Bees before being discontinued in 2022. It is one of many such IN-OUT words in Bee history, as LexiConnexxions has documented HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Of the 3090 Spelling Bees to date, today’s letter set is the 143rd to include the letter X. Only Z (125x), J (91x), Q (21x), and S (3x) have been in fewer letter sets. (We say "letter sets" and not "pangrams" because some letter sets produce multiple pangrams.) LexiConnexxions report on Spelling Bees with J Q S X or Z is HERE.
Rare Bee letters also play a factor in the very short list of Bees in which a particular letter is used only once in the solution set. According to sbsolver.com, today is only the 14th such Bee: only one answer includes the letter X. In that list of 14, the “lone” letters are J (5x), X (4x), V (2x), M (1x), G (1x), and Z (1x). Most of those solution sets (11 of 14) have <30 words.
With just 29 words, today’s Bee might have seemed a pleasant reprieve from the string of far-longer-than-average Bees we’ve had in recent weeks. The average puzzle length so far in Oct is 46.16, which is significantly higher than recent annual averages (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). (Also so far in October, the median word count is 51, the modes 56 and 61.)
The letter L shows up often as center letter; in fact, it is the fourth most frequently used center letter (after O, T, and A.)
WORD NOTES
The combining forms -log -logy (and their various forms) trace back to the Greek word logos, meaning reason, speech, and discourse. We see this root in English words about certain forms of oral or written expression (e.g., analogy), or in the names of specific doctrines, theories, or science (e.g., today’s pangram TOXICOLOGICAL). The Spelling Bee lexicon includes many words about speech or science that are built on this old, old word; just for fun, here they are (pangrams in ALL CAPS; words with asterisks have been discontinued):
analogy apology biologic BIOLOGICAL ecology ETHOLOGY* ETYMOLOGY gemology GENEALOGY geology GLACIOLOGY GYNECOLOGY homology HOROLOGIC horology HYDROLOGY IDEOLOGY illogic illogical ILLOGICALLY logic logical LOGICALLY mammalogy MIXOLOGY monolog MYTHOLOGY NONAPOLOGY oenology oncology ontology otology PHILOLOGY teleology THEOLOGY topology TO11 typology VIROLOGY zoologic ZOOLOGICAL
“The Bee includes too many ‘made-up’ words!” Well yes it does, because all words were “made up” some time, by somebody, for some purpose, weren’t they? Sometimes we know their stories, such as for today's word googol, the number that is one followed by 100 zeros. According to Merriam-Webster, googol was “coined by Milton Sirotta, born about 1929 nephew of Edward Kasner (†1955), American mathematician.” Also at that link, M-W’s “Did you Know?” paragraph explains the relationship – and the differences – between googol and the word for the search engine google or the act of using it. Interesting!
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-22
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3090 H A B C E L TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3090 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/22/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set, with its three pangrams ATTACHABLE, CATCHABLE, and TEACHABLE make their debut today, bringing with them one other new word, batch.
The three pangrams are technically new (and bring the total number of pangrams to 1906), but as their root words (attach, catch, and teach) have long been in the Bee lexicon, they don’t really feel new. And batch is such a common word in English that it really doesn’t add much interest to the solving experience.
Two of today’s words were OUT before they were IN; heatable was excluded once before being accepted, and telehealth was excluded twice before being added in 2021, during the pandemic.
Two words that were possible today but were not included are bethel (excluded once, then used once, then discontinued) and letch (used twice, then discontinued). See the WORD NOTES below for more about these Bee words. LexiConnexxions tracks all such INS and OUTs in the Bee Lexicon, HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
ABLE and ready: Many Bee solvers keep lists of variant spellings, words with particular character strings, and the like, as solving aids. As part of our project to develop a series of Solvers’ Lists, LexiConnexxions has gathered together all the Bee words that include ABLE (and IBLE) HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
The three new pangrams join 35 other pangrams that end with the -ABLE suffix, which, like prefix UN-, baffles and annoys many Bee solvers. Which words will take -ABLE (or -UN)? Most of us probably use a trial-and-error approach to see what will stick. The English language has its inconsistencies, and the Bee holds these up for us to see. Don’t blame Sam; it’s we who, as writers and speakers of English, have shaped the language inconsistently, and lexicographers record our inconsistencies in dictionaries, and Sam uses dictionaries. Sam seems to struggle with -ABLE words, too: Of the 64 words in the Bee lexicon with the -ABLE suffix, 12 were excluded before being accepted: alienable appealable blamable blameable bookable eatable fillable heatable helpable hewable
WORD NOTES Yesterday’s Bee included lech, but not letch. Why one, but not the other? Merriam-Webster gives separate entries for lech and letch; that is, they are not offered as spelling variants. M-W explains that letch is a “back-formation from letcher, alteration of lecher” – in other words, lecher (and therefore lech) is the primary spelling, and letcher (and letch) is (probably) a phonetic re-spelling, and therefore secondary. The Spelling Bee lexicon includes dozens of pairs and trios of variant spellings, including some derived from alterations, back formations, etc., so perhaps Sam has some other reason (frequency?) for having always included lech when it is available, but discontinuing letch after just two uses.
Another discontinued Bee words opens the door to a bit of maritime – and literary – history: Though the word bethel was discontinued from the Spelling Bee long ago, solvers continue to look for it whenever it is possible in the Bee, perhaps because of its prominence in one of the masterpieces of Western literature, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. LexiConnexxions includes a brief essay on bethels in the series of WordPlay Wanderings, HERE.
In today’s Bee we have...Nasty epithets: lech and letch, heel, hellcat, leechArchaic words: hath, theeAn abandoned accent: attachéVariants: lech/letch [but see note above], leech/leach [when referring to sails]Noun/verb combos: bath/bathe, lath/lathe, teeth/teetheClipped words: lech, tach, tech
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set, with its three pangrams ATTACHABLE, CATCHABLE, and TEACHABLE make their debut today, bringing with them one other new word, batch.
The three pangrams are technically new (and bring the total number of pangrams to 1906), but as their root words (attach, catch, and teach) have long been in the Bee lexicon, they don’t really feel new. And batch is such a common word in English that it really doesn’t add much interest to the solving experience.
Two of today’s words were OUT before they were IN; heatable was excluded once before being accepted, and telehealth was excluded twice before being added in 2021, during the pandemic.
Two words that were possible today but were not included are bethel (excluded once, then used once, then discontinued) and letch (used twice, then discontinued). See the WORD NOTES below for more about these Bee words. LexiConnexxions tracks all such INS and OUTs in the Bee Lexicon, HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
ABLE and ready: Many Bee solvers keep lists of variant spellings, words with particular character strings, and the like, as solving aids. As part of our project to develop a series of Solvers’ Lists, LexiConnexxions has gathered together all the Bee words that include ABLE (and IBLE) HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
The three new pangrams join 35 other pangrams that end with the -ABLE suffix, which, like prefix UN-, baffles and annoys many Bee solvers. Which words will take -ABLE (or -UN)? Most of us probably use a trial-and-error approach to see what will stick. The English language has its inconsistencies, and the Bee holds these up for us to see. Don’t blame Sam; it’s we who, as writers and speakers of English, have shaped the language inconsistently, and lexicographers record our inconsistencies in dictionaries, and Sam uses dictionaries. Sam seems to struggle with -ABLE words, too: Of the 64 words in the Bee lexicon with the -ABLE suffix, 12 were excluded before being accepted: alienable appealable blamable blameable bookable eatable fillable heatable helpable hewable
WORD NOTES Yesterday’s Bee included lech, but not letch. Why one, but not the other? Merriam-Webster gives separate entries for lech and letch; that is, they are not offered as spelling variants. M-W explains that letch is a “back-formation from letcher, alteration of lecher” – in other words, lecher (and therefore lech) is the primary spelling, and letcher (and letch) is (probably) a phonetic re-spelling, and therefore secondary. The Spelling Bee lexicon includes dozens of pairs and trios of variant spellings, including some derived from alterations, back formations, etc., so perhaps Sam has some other reason (frequency?) for having always included lech when it is available, but discontinuing letch after just two uses.
Another discontinued Bee words opens the door to a bit of maritime – and literary – history: Though the word bethel was discontinued from the Spelling Bee long ago, solvers continue to look for it whenever it is possible in the Bee, perhaps because of its prominence in one of the masterpieces of Western literature, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. LexiConnexxions includes a brief essay on bethels in the series of WordPlay Wanderings, HERE.
In today’s Bee we have...Nasty epithets: lech and letch, heel, hellcat, leechArchaic words: hath, theeAn abandoned accent: attachéVariants: lech/letch [but see note above], leech/leach [when referring to sails]Noun/verb combos: bath/bathe, lath/lathe, teeth/teetheClipped words: lech, tach, tech
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-21
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3088 L A D I P R YToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3088 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/21/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its two pangrams LAPIDARY and RAPIDLY make their fourth appearance today.
No new words were added, and none were discontinued, but one word was brought back today after having been previously disallowed: papillary. It was used once, then excluded twice, then brought back into the active lexicon today. It’s one of only 37 such IN-OUT-IN words in the Bee lexicon of more than 11,200 words, as LexiConnexxions has documented here.
Another word that was used in the past but was not selected today is iliad. It was used in 22 Bees (2018-2020) before being discontinued in 2020. (See WORD NOTES below for more information about this word’s eligibility for the Bee.) It’s one of about 270 such IN-OUT words in the Bee lexicon, as LexiConnexxions reports HERE.
Two words in today’s solution set were excluded from many Bees before being accepted: palapa (26x) and palp (4x). They are among the nearly 300 such OUT-IN words in the Bee lexicon, as LexiConnexxions reports HERE.
Nearly every Spelling Bee has some history hidden within it.
DESIGN NOTES
Like many recent Bees, today’s 56-word puzzle is significantly larger than average. It will be interesting to see if this series of Big Bees is just a big blip, or an emerging trend. LexiConnexxions tracks and reports all changes to the lexicon, and posts monthly and annual summary reports HERE.
The letter L shows up often as center letter; in fact, it is the fourth most frequently used center letter (after O, T, and A.)
Beeatrice wore her witch’s hat upon reaching the Genius level Oct 17-20, but today she reverted to her mortarboard. What’s she up to?
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee has two sets of variant spellings – idyl and idyll, and rial and riyal – a reminder to keep variants in mind when solving.
The -LY and -Y suffixes play a big role in today’s Bee. While it’s easy to simply attach -LY to some words in the solution set (e.g., papal and papally, dill and dilly, pallid and pallidly, radial and radially), others are not so readily apparent, as they are formed from words that are not in today’s Bee because 1) they have fewer than four letters, or 2) include letters that are not in today’s Bee, or 3) lack the center letter L, or 4) any combination of those factors:
airily (airy)daily (day)diddly (diddle)dryly (dry)idly (idle)illy (ill)lippy (lip)piddly (piddle)rapidly (rapid)ripply (ripple)
WORD NOTES
Why isn’t iliad in the Bee today? As mentioned above, it was used in 22 Bees before being discontinued. Why was it discontinued? We can never know. Two of four Bee-ish dictionaries (M-W abridged, NOAD) include it only as the upper-case Iliad, while two others (M-W unabridged, Collins) include both upper- and lower-case variants, with the lower-case variant defined as a (not THE) long narrative, or a series of military or adventurous exploits or trials. It's one of many words in the Bee lexicon that come from literature and film, as LexiConnexxions has reported HERE.
One of today’s pangrams, LAPIDARY, derives from the Latin word for stone, and its several meanings lay the stones before our eyes. M-W abridged offers several definitions: a person who cuts and polishes precious stones, or the art of gem-cutting; or as an adjective referring to the “elegance and precision” of inscribed stone; or suggestive of precious stones and the art of cutting them. That stony root shows up in other familiar words, such as dilapidated, which comes from an old word that means “to destroy by pelting with stones,” and lapis lazuli, a semi-precious blue stone.
Today’s Bee has three words about currency: lira, rial, and riyal. The Bee lexicon includes the names of many global currencies; LexiConnexxions has banked them all in the LexiTopics Report Economics & Finance, HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3088 L A D I P R YToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3088 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/21/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its two pangrams LAPIDARY and RAPIDLY make their fourth appearance today.
No new words were added, and none were discontinued, but one word was brought back today after having been previously disallowed: papillary. It was used once, then excluded twice, then brought back into the active lexicon today. It’s one of only 37 such IN-OUT-IN words in the Bee lexicon of more than 11,200 words, as LexiConnexxions has documented here.
Another word that was used in the past but was not selected today is iliad. It was used in 22 Bees (2018-2020) before being discontinued in 2020. (See WORD NOTES below for more information about this word’s eligibility for the Bee.) It’s one of about 270 such IN-OUT words in the Bee lexicon, as LexiConnexxions reports HERE.
Two words in today’s solution set were excluded from many Bees before being accepted: palapa (26x) and palp (4x). They are among the nearly 300 such OUT-IN words in the Bee lexicon, as LexiConnexxions reports HERE.
Nearly every Spelling Bee has some history hidden within it.
DESIGN NOTES
Like many recent Bees, today’s 56-word puzzle is significantly larger than average. It will be interesting to see if this series of Big Bees is just a big blip, or an emerging trend. LexiConnexxions tracks and reports all changes to the lexicon, and posts monthly and annual summary reports HERE.
The letter L shows up often as center letter; in fact, it is the fourth most frequently used center letter (after O, T, and A.)
Beeatrice wore her witch’s hat upon reaching the Genius level Oct 17-20, but today she reverted to her mortarboard. What’s she up to?
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee has two sets of variant spellings – idyl and idyll, and rial and riyal – a reminder to keep variants in mind when solving.
The -LY and -Y suffixes play a big role in today’s Bee. While it’s easy to simply attach -LY to some words in the solution set (e.g., papal and papally, dill and dilly, pallid and pallidly, radial and radially), others are not so readily apparent, as they are formed from words that are not in today’s Bee because 1) they have fewer than four letters, or 2) include letters that are not in today’s Bee, or 3) lack the center letter L, or 4) any combination of those factors:
airily (airy)daily (day)diddly (diddle)dryly (dry)idly (idle)illy (ill)lippy (lip)piddly (piddle)rapidly (rapid)ripply (ripple)
WORD NOTES
Why isn’t iliad in the Bee today? As mentioned above, it was used in 22 Bees before being discontinued. Why was it discontinued? We can never know. Two of four Bee-ish dictionaries (M-W abridged, NOAD) include it only as the upper-case Iliad, while two others (M-W unabridged, Collins) include both upper- and lower-case variants, with the lower-case variant defined as a (not THE) long narrative, or a series of military or adventurous exploits or trials. It's one of many words in the Bee lexicon that come from literature and film, as LexiConnexxions has reported HERE.
One of today’s pangrams, LAPIDARY, derives from the Latin word for stone, and its several meanings lay the stones before our eyes. M-W abridged offers several definitions: a person who cuts and polishes precious stones, or the art of gem-cutting; or as an adjective referring to the “elegance and precision” of inscribed stone; or suggestive of precious stones and the art of cutting them. That stony root shows up in other familiar words, such as dilapidated, which comes from an old word that means “to destroy by pelting with stones,” and lapis lazuli, a semi-precious blue stone.
Today’s Bee has three words about currency: lira, rial, and riyal. The Bee lexicon includes the names of many global currencies; LexiConnexxions has banked them all in the LexiTopics Report Economics & Finance, HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-20
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3087 H C I K M N UToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3087 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/20/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its single pangram MUNCHKIN makes its fourth appearance today.
No words were added today, and none discontinued. One word that was possible but not included was unchic; it was used in one Bee in 2020, then discontinued. Another excluded word was chink; that was used in one very early Bee (July 2018), then discontinued. It’s one of hundreds of IN-OUT words in the Bee Lexicon, as documented HERE. (See more about this word in the WORD NOTES for today, below.)
DESIGN NOTES
With only 18 words in the solution set, today’s Bee is a small one. A munchkin of a Bee. Only six Bees have had fewer words. Each of the three previous uses of this letter set had a small solution set (23, 18, 19), regardless of center letter (C, N, I).
We’ve had center letter H two days in a row, but with such different letter sets that there was no overlap between the word lists.
Beeatrice had her witch’s hat on again today at the Genius level. She usually reserves it for October 31, but this year she brought it out on Oct 17th and has been wearing it every day. (Has holiday creep crept into our puzzles? Hallowe’en candy was on sale in August, and Hallowe’en stuff has already been supplanted by Christmas decorations.)
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s solution set includes a pair of variant spellings, nunchuck and nunchuk. The Bee lexicon includes many pairs and even trios of variant spellings, and good solvers always keep them in mind.
WORD NOTES
Isn’t today’s pangram MUNCHKIN a capitalized word? Yes, when referring to the characters in the Wizard of Oz books or film. But like many other words from literature and film, it has entered our common language and dropped its capital letter along the way. Merriam-Webster defines munchkin as “a person who is notably small and often endearing,” but in its etymological note it capitalizes the word from which it derives: “the Munchkins, diminutive creatures in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum.” The Bee lexicon includes a large number of words that have come to the language from literature and film; LexiConnexxions has gathered them all HERE.
Why was chink excluded from today’s Bee? Though the word chink has several innocuous meanings, it also has one with a really shameful racist history. The word was used only once, back in 2018, when the Bee was brand new; it was never used again.
Other obvious slurs (mammy, coon, mick) have also been discontinued, while others that may be less obvious remain (conch, bubba, chick and hick from today’s Bee, and many others). Some derogatory terms about ability have been removed (gimp, gimping), others remain and cause hurt (moron, idiot, imbecile). These words also have other meanings. It would be interesting to hear from the Bee editor about how he makes decisions for each of these words with multiple meanings. For example, the Bee word biddy; Merriam-Webster defines it thus:
A hen; also: a young ch5enA hired girl or cleaning womanusually disparaging: woman, especially: an elderly woman
Biddy was used in one Bee (Aug 2018), then disallowed (Aug 2020), then brought back earlier this year (Mar 2026). Why and how?
LexiConnexxions has identified about 90 words in the Bee lexicon that M-W labels as offensive, vulgar, disparaging, derogatory, etc.; they are all in a WordPlay report. HERE.
The Spelling Bee “How to Play” (spelled out in this LexiConnexxions GamePlay report) says only “No cussing.”
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3087 H C I K M N UToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3087 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/20/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its single pangram MUNCHKIN makes its fourth appearance today.
No words were added today, and none discontinued. One word that was possible but not included was unchic; it was used in one Bee in 2020, then discontinued. Another excluded word was chink; that was used in one very early Bee (July 2018), then discontinued. It’s one of hundreds of IN-OUT words in the Bee Lexicon, as documented HERE. (See more about this word in the WORD NOTES for today, below.)
DESIGN NOTES
With only 18 words in the solution set, today’s Bee is a small one. A munchkin of a Bee. Only six Bees have had fewer words. Each of the three previous uses of this letter set had a small solution set (23, 18, 19), regardless of center letter (C, N, I).
We’ve had center letter H two days in a row, but with such different letter sets that there was no overlap between the word lists.
Beeatrice had her witch’s hat on again today at the Genius level. She usually reserves it for October 31, but this year she brought it out on Oct 17th and has been wearing it every day. (Has holiday creep crept into our puzzles? Hallowe’en candy was on sale in August, and Hallowe’en stuff has already been supplanted by Christmas decorations.)
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s solution set includes a pair of variant spellings, nunchuck and nunchuk. The Bee lexicon includes many pairs and even trios of variant spellings, and good solvers always keep them in mind.
WORD NOTES
Isn’t today’s pangram MUNCHKIN a capitalized word? Yes, when referring to the characters in the Wizard of Oz books or film. But like many other words from literature and film, it has entered our common language and dropped its capital letter along the way. Merriam-Webster defines munchkin as “a person who is notably small and often endearing,” but in its etymological note it capitalizes the word from which it derives: “the Munchkins, diminutive creatures in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum.” The Bee lexicon includes a large number of words that have come to the language from literature and film; LexiConnexxions has gathered them all HERE.
Why was chink excluded from today’s Bee? Though the word chink has several innocuous meanings, it also has one with a really shameful racist history. The word was used only once, back in 2018, when the Bee was brand new; it was never used again.
Other obvious slurs (mammy, coon, mick) have also been discontinued, while others that may be less obvious remain (conch, bubba, chick and hick from today’s Bee, and many others). Some derogatory terms about ability have been removed (gimp, gimping), others remain and cause hurt (moron, idiot, imbecile). These words also have other meanings. It would be interesting to hear from the Bee editor about how he makes decisions for each of these words with multiple meanings. For example, the Bee word biddy; Merriam-Webster defines it thus:
A hen; also: a young ch5enA hired girl or cleaning womanusually disparaging: woman, especially: an elderly woman
Biddy was used in one Bee (Aug 2018), then disallowed (Aug 2020), then brought back earlier this year (Mar 2026). Why and how?
LexiConnexxions has identified about 90 words in the Bee lexicon that M-W labels as offensive, vulgar, disparaging, derogatory, etc.; they are all in a WordPlay report. HERE.
The Spelling Bee “How to Play” (spelled out in this LexiConnexxions GamePlay report) says only “No cussing.”
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-19
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3086 H E G I L N WToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3086 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/19/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram WHEELING make their third appearance today.
No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none removed.
Five of today’s words had been disallowed before being accepted into the Bee lexicon: ghee (disallowed 2x), henge (4x), whinge (4x), whingeing (4x), and whinging (3x). These words are among the hundreds of Bee words with a similar OUT-IN history, as LexiConnexxions has recorded HERE.
Many players look for hieing each time it is possible; that word was discontinued from the Bee lexicon in 2023, after having been used 4 times. Its partner hied was discontinued (after 15 uses). Both are in the LexiConnexxions list of words with IN-OUT histories, HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s is the third puzzle in October to have I+N+G, which is right about what would be expected; we typically see 5-7 of these gerund-rich Bees per month.
Did you notice that none of the words in today’s solution set begin with a vowel? Today’s Bee is only the 85th (of 3086 Bees to date) to have this characteristic. LexiConnexxions maintains the list of such Bees HERE.
And did you notice that today’s solution set has only four starting letters? That’s also rare; only 100 of 3086 Bees have had four or fewer starting letters. Of those, 83 (including today’s) had four, 13 had three, 2 had two, and 2 had only one starting letter. LexiConnexxions maintains the list of such Bees HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
Another I+N+G Bee? They’re not that bad. LexiConnexxions has developed a “Solv-ING” guide for you; explore it HERE.
WORD NOTES
Aren’t whinge, whingeing, and whinging rather “British” for the Spelling Bee? Conventional "Hive" wisdom has long been confident that “chiefly British” words are not included in the Spelling Bee. However, the Bee editor has said only that the Bee will not include “clear variants or British variants on American English words,” a statement that LexiConnexxions interprets to refer only to variant spellings (e.g., colour and color). And indeed, the Spelling Bee lexicon does include dozens of words that dictionaries of American English label as British, Scottish, and Australian English, including a few used as pangrams (MOTORWAY, UNJAMMING). LexiConnexxions has compiled a list of them all HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3086 H E G I L N WToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3086 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/19/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram WHEELING make their third appearance today.
No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none removed.
Five of today’s words had been disallowed before being accepted into the Bee lexicon: ghee (disallowed 2x), henge (4x), whinge (4x), whingeing (4x), and whinging (3x). These words are among the hundreds of Bee words with a similar OUT-IN history, as LexiConnexxions has recorded HERE.
Many players look for hieing each time it is possible; that word was discontinued from the Bee lexicon in 2023, after having been used 4 times. Its partner hied was discontinued (after 15 uses). Both are in the LexiConnexxions list of words with IN-OUT histories, HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s is the third puzzle in October to have I+N+G, which is right about what would be expected; we typically see 5-7 of these gerund-rich Bees per month.
Did you notice that none of the words in today’s solution set begin with a vowel? Today’s Bee is only the 85th (of 3086 Bees to date) to have this characteristic. LexiConnexxions maintains the list of such Bees HERE.
And did you notice that today’s solution set has only four starting letters? That’s also rare; only 100 of 3086 Bees have had four or fewer starting letters. Of those, 83 (including today’s) had four, 13 had three, 2 had two, and 2 had only one starting letter. LexiConnexxions maintains the list of such Bees HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
Another I+N+G Bee? They’re not that bad. LexiConnexxions has developed a “Solv-ING” guide for you; explore it HERE.
WORD NOTES
Aren’t whinge, whingeing, and whinging rather “British” for the Spelling Bee? Conventional "Hive" wisdom has long been confident that “chiefly British” words are not included in the Spelling Bee. However, the Bee editor has said only that the Bee will not include “clear variants or British variants on American English words,” a statement that LexiConnexxions interprets to refer only to variant spellings (e.g., colour and color). And indeed, the Spelling Bee lexicon does include dozens of words that dictionaries of American English label as British, Scottish, and Australian English, including a few used as pangrams (MOTORWAY, UNJAMMING). LexiConnexxions has compiled a list of them all HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-18
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3085 I D E J N O TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3085 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/18/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTSS
Today’s letter set and its single pangram JOINTED make their second appearance today. It’s been more than five years since their debut on April 3, 2021.
Of the 1903 pangrams used so far in the Spelling Bee, just 463 are, like today’s JOINTED, perfect pangrams. In the Spelling Bee, a “pangram” is a word that contains all seven of the day’s letter set. A pangram is always at least seven letters long. A pangram that uses each letter just once is called a perfect pangram and is always exactly seven letters long. A pangram may also contain repeated letters and thus may be longer than seven letters. Read more about pangrams in the LexiConnexxions GamePlay guide HERE.
No new words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none removed.
Two of today’s answers, innie and iodide, were excluded before they were included: innie 12 times, and iodide 10 times. They are among the hundreds of such IN-OUT words in the Bee lexicon, as reported HERE.
Did you look for noontide or tontine today? Each word was used in earlier Bees (noontide once, and tontine 10 times) before being discontinued. They are among the hundreds of discontinued Bee words; they are all listed HERE.
LexiConnexxions keeps track of all such changes in the Bee lexicon and records them all HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
If you made it to Genius today, you might have noticed that Beeatrice, the little cartoon Bee, is wearing a tiny witch hat. She often dons one at Hallowe’en, but she brought her pointy hat out of her chapeau closet yesterday, and it seems as though she might wear it every day until Hallowe’en. LexiConnexxions provides a peek into Beeatrice’s closet HERE.
With 59 words, today’s Bee is well above the historical averages for words per Bee (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). Though the average size of the solution sets has remained constant over the past two years, there have been enough long-ish Bees in the past several weeks to nudge those numbers up, as we have been reporting here. So far in October, the average number of words per puzzle has been 47.94, with median of 52 and mode of 51. LexiConnexxions publishes monthly and annual summaries of all sorts of Bee-related data; they are all listed HERE.
How often does the letter J show up? Today’s Bee is only the 91st (of 3085) to include the letter J. Only once has J been center letter. Of all 1903 pangrams ever used in the Bee, only 35 have included the letter J. Only Q and S appear less often than J. LexiConnexxions keeps track of Spelling Bees with J Q S X or Z, HERE.
Today’s center letter I is one of the most common center letters, ranking fifth in frequency of use, after O, T, A, and L.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee includes letters to form two suffixes: -ED and -TION; 18 words end with -ED, four end with -TION, and one, intentioned, includes both suffixes. And as a matter of fact, intentioned is the only word in the Bee lexicon that ends with -TIONED.
When the -ED suffix is possible, a good Bee solver has to think creatively to “see” words that are not, and cannot, be in the solution set. For example, the answers denied, eddied, and tidied are formed from root verbs that end with Y (deny, eddy, and tidy), but as there is no letter Y in today’s Bee, solvers have to “see” those root verbs in order to form their past participles. Several other words (died, tied, tinned) are formed from root verbs that have fewer than four letters and thus cannot be in the Bee at all (die, tie, tin).
WORD NOTES
There are a lot of supernatural spirits flying around the Bee today! According to Merriam-Webster, jinni (and its plural jinn, yes, that’s right) are the preferred spellings in American English, with djinni and djinn being accepted variant spellings. While all four of those words have been in the Bee lexicon for several years, today is only the second time that all four have appeared together. The Bee lexicon also includes the Anglicized alternate spellings genie (singular) and genii (plural). Yes, it’s confusing. All of them are included, along with many other mythical creatures and beings, in the LexiTopics report on Myth & Magic, HERE.
Two interesting "coined" words: When Canada introduced its one-dollar coin in 1987, it immediately became known as the “loonie” because of the image of the elegant Common Loon on its obverse. When the two-dollar coin was introduced in 1995, people dubbed it the “toonie,” a portmanteau or blend of “two” and ”loonie.” LexiConnexxions has gathered all such blend words from the Bee lexicon; see them all HERE. Both "loonie" and "toonie" are included with a long list of currency types in the LexiTopics report on Economics & Finance, HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3085 I D E J N O TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3085 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/18/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTSS
Today’s letter set and its single pangram JOINTED make their second appearance today. It’s been more than five years since their debut on April 3, 2021.
Of the 1903 pangrams used so far in the Spelling Bee, just 463 are, like today’s JOINTED, perfect pangrams. In the Spelling Bee, a “pangram” is a word that contains all seven of the day’s letter set. A pangram is always at least seven letters long. A pangram that uses each letter just once is called a perfect pangram and is always exactly seven letters long. A pangram may also contain repeated letters and thus may be longer than seven letters. Read more about pangrams in the LexiConnexxions GamePlay guide HERE.
No new words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none removed.
Two of today’s answers, innie and iodide, were excluded before they were included: innie 12 times, and iodide 10 times. They are among the hundreds of such IN-OUT words in the Bee lexicon, as reported HERE.
Did you look for noontide or tontine today? Each word was used in earlier Bees (noontide once, and tontine 10 times) before being discontinued. They are among the hundreds of discontinued Bee words; they are all listed HERE.
LexiConnexxions keeps track of all such changes in the Bee lexicon and records them all HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
If you made it to Genius today, you might have noticed that Beeatrice, the little cartoon Bee, is wearing a tiny witch hat. She often dons one at Hallowe’en, but she brought her pointy hat out of her chapeau closet yesterday, and it seems as though she might wear it every day until Hallowe’en. LexiConnexxions provides a peek into Beeatrice’s closet HERE.
With 59 words, today’s Bee is well above the historical averages for words per Bee (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). Though the average size of the solution sets has remained constant over the past two years, there have been enough long-ish Bees in the past several weeks to nudge those numbers up, as we have been reporting here. So far in October, the average number of words per puzzle has been 47.94, with median of 52 and mode of 51. LexiConnexxions publishes monthly and annual summaries of all sorts of Bee-related data; they are all listed HERE.
How often does the letter J show up? Today’s Bee is only the 91st (of 3085) to include the letter J. Only once has J been center letter. Of all 1903 pangrams ever used in the Bee, only 35 have included the letter J. Only Q and S appear less often than J. LexiConnexxions keeps track of Spelling Bees with J Q S X or Z, HERE.
Today’s center letter I is one of the most common center letters, ranking fifth in frequency of use, after O, T, A, and L.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee includes letters to form two suffixes: -ED and -TION; 18 words end with -ED, four end with -TION, and one, intentioned, includes both suffixes. And as a matter of fact, intentioned is the only word in the Bee lexicon that ends with -TIONED.
When the -ED suffix is possible, a good Bee solver has to think creatively to “see” words that are not, and cannot, be in the solution set. For example, the answers denied, eddied, and tidied are formed from root verbs that end with Y (deny, eddy, and tidy), but as there is no letter Y in today’s Bee, solvers have to “see” those root verbs in order to form their past participles. Several other words (died, tied, tinned) are formed from root verbs that have fewer than four letters and thus cannot be in the Bee at all (die, tie, tin).
WORD NOTES
There are a lot of supernatural spirits flying around the Bee today! According to Merriam-Webster, jinni (and its plural jinn, yes, that’s right) are the preferred spellings in American English, with djinni and djinn being accepted variant spellings. While all four of those words have been in the Bee lexicon for several years, today is only the second time that all four have appeared together. The Bee lexicon also includes the Anglicized alternate spellings genie (singular) and genii (plural). Yes, it’s confusing. All of them are included, along with many other mythical creatures and beings, in the LexiTopics report on Myth & Magic, HERE.
Two interesting "coined" words: When Canada introduced its one-dollar coin in 1987, it immediately became known as the “loonie” because of the image of the elegant Common Loon on its obverse. When the two-dollar coin was introduced in 1995, people dubbed it the “toonie,” a portmanteau or blend of “two” and ”loonie.” LexiConnexxions has gathered all such blend words from the Bee lexicon; see them all HERE. Both "loonie" and "toonie" are included with a long list of currency types in the LexiTopics report on Economics & Finance, HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-17
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3084 M A B L N T UToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3084 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/17/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram AMBULANT make their fourth appearance today.
No new words were added today, and none discontinued.
One of today’s answers, numbat, had been disallowed from two Bees before being accepted in 2022.
What made numbat unacceptable the first two times it was possible, and what made the Bee editor change his mind on it? He has spoken often about his process for word selection, but except for the occasions on which he’s acknowledged a rare error (e.g., unintentionally including or excluding a specific word) he hasn’t shared much about how or why he has changed his mind on more than 600 words since 2018, as recorded by LexiConnexxions HERE. LexiConnexxions has gathered all the Bee editor’s public remarks about the Spelling Bee and organized them HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s Bee is rather average: A slightly-below-average number of words, no rare letters, no -ED or -ING to annoy players who don’t care for those suffixes in their Bee, and two nice seasonal words, autumn and autumnal.
Was it the inclusion of autumn and autumnal that prompted someone to sneak a little witch hat on to Beeatrice today, when she reached Genius? She has often donned a witch hat on Hallowe’en – LexiConnexxions has documented the contents of her chapeau cupboard HERE – but we can’t recall any time when she dressed up on the wrong date. Perhaps she plans to wear that hat until Hallowe’en? We’ll keep an eye on her.
WORD NOTES
Today’s solution set of 33 words includes quite a menagerie: bantam, lamb, llama, mamba, mammal, manta, mutt, and numbat. They are all included and defined in the LexiTopics report on Animals, HERE.
The name of the chemical element tantalum has an interesting story. Merriam-Webster defines tantalum as “a gray-white ductile acid-resisting metallic element found combined in rare minerals (such as tantalite and columbite) and used especially in electronic components” and gives its etymology simply as “New Latin, from Latin Tantalus; from its inability to absorb acid.” Tantalum, tantalize, and related words derive from the name of Tantalus. As etymonline explains, Tantalus was the name of a mythical king of Phrygia in Asia Minor; “son of Zeus, father of Pelops and Niobe, famous for his riches, he was punished in the afterlife (for an offense variously given) by being made to stand in a river up to his chin, under branches laden with fruit, all of which withdrew from his reach whenever he tried to eat or drink.” And when we tantalize someone, we “tease or torment by presenting something desirable to the view and frustrating expectation by keeping it out of reach.” The chemical element tantalum was, according to etymonline, “named [in] 1802 by its discoverer, Swedish chemist Anders Ekberg (1767-1813), for Tantalus, according to Ekberg partly because its inability to absorb acid recalled Tantalus' punishment in the afterlife. Sometimes it is said to be so called from the difficulty scientists faced in obtaining a pure specimen.”
There are 118 chemical elements; about two dozen, including tantalum, may be found in the Spelling Bee lexicon. LexiConnexxions has documented them all in a special WordPlay report on chemical elements in the Bee HERE; they are also indexed in the LexiTopics reports on Chemistry and Geology & Geography.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3084 M A B L N T UToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3084 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/17/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram AMBULANT make their fourth appearance today.
No new words were added today, and none discontinued.
One of today’s answers, numbat, had been disallowed from two Bees before being accepted in 2022.
What made numbat unacceptable the first two times it was possible, and what made the Bee editor change his mind on it? He has spoken often about his process for word selection, but except for the occasions on which he’s acknowledged a rare error (e.g., unintentionally including or excluding a specific word) he hasn’t shared much about how or why he has changed his mind on more than 600 words since 2018, as recorded by LexiConnexxions HERE. LexiConnexxions has gathered all the Bee editor’s public remarks about the Spelling Bee and organized them HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s Bee is rather average: A slightly-below-average number of words, no rare letters, no -ED or -ING to annoy players who don’t care for those suffixes in their Bee, and two nice seasonal words, autumn and autumnal.
Was it the inclusion of autumn and autumnal that prompted someone to sneak a little witch hat on to Beeatrice today, when she reached Genius? She has often donned a witch hat on Hallowe’en – LexiConnexxions has documented the contents of her chapeau cupboard HERE – but we can’t recall any time when she dressed up on the wrong date. Perhaps she plans to wear that hat until Hallowe’en? We’ll keep an eye on her.
WORD NOTES
Today’s solution set of 33 words includes quite a menagerie: bantam, lamb, llama, mamba, mammal, manta, mutt, and numbat. They are all included and defined in the LexiTopics report on Animals, HERE.
The name of the chemical element tantalum has an interesting story. Merriam-Webster defines tantalum as “a gray-white ductile acid-resisting metallic element found combined in rare minerals (such as tantalite and columbite) and used especially in electronic components” and gives its etymology simply as “New Latin, from Latin Tantalus; from its inability to absorb acid.” Tantalum, tantalize, and related words derive from the name of Tantalus. As etymonline explains, Tantalus was the name of a mythical king of Phrygia in Asia Minor; “son of Zeus, father of Pelops and Niobe, famous for his riches, he was punished in the afterlife (for an offense variously given) by being made to stand in a river up to his chin, under branches laden with fruit, all of which withdrew from his reach whenever he tried to eat or drink.” And when we tantalize someone, we “tease or torment by presenting something desirable to the view and frustrating expectation by keeping it out of reach.” The chemical element tantalum was, according to etymonline, “named [in] 1802 by its discoverer, Swedish chemist Anders Ekberg (1767-1813), for Tantalus, according to Ekberg partly because its inability to absorb acid recalled Tantalus' punishment in the afterlife. Sometimes it is said to be so called from the difficulty scientists faced in obtaining a pure specimen.”
There are 118 chemical elements; about two dozen, including tantalum, may be found in the Spelling Bee lexicon. LexiConnexxions has documented them all in a special WordPlay report on chemical elements in the Bee HERE; they are also indexed in the LexiTopics reports on Chemistry and Geology & Geography.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-16
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3083 G B I N P R UToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3083 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its two pangrams BURPING and UPBRINGING make their third appearance today.
No new words were added today, and none removed.
Only one of today’s words has any Bee “history,” and that’s gigging; it was excluded from eight Bees before being accepted in 2022. LexiConnexxions maintains a listing of all such OUT-IN words HERE.
SOLV-ING TIPS
Many Bee players don’t care for puzzles that include I+N+G, because of the idea that one can simply slap -ING onto verb roots to make words. But it’s rarely so easy, as illustrated by today’s Bee.
Of the 56 words in today’s solution set, 42 (75%) end with the -ING suffix. Of those 42 words, only eight can be made by the simple addition of -ING to a root, without modifying the root: bringing, burning, burping, inurning, pinging, purring, ringing, and ruining.
A large number of today’s answers can be made only by “seeing” words that are not in today’s Bee at all. Why?
Many of today’s answers are formed from root verbs that end in E (a letter that is not in today’s Bee), from which the E must be dropped before -ING can be added: binging, bribing, brining, gibing, griping, inuring, pining, piping, pruning, purging, ruing and urging. So, a solver must “see” the invisible words brine, gibe, gripe, etc.
Many others are formed from root verbs that are just two or three letters long that can never be in the Bee at all (because Bee words must be at least four letters long): binning, bugging, gigging, ginning, gunning, inning, nipping, pigging, pinning, punning, ribbing, rigging, ripping, rubbing, ruing, running, and upping. To find these words, a solver must “see” invisible short words like bin, bug, rue, up, etc.
Most of the answers formed by these short verbs require doubling of the final letter before adding -ING (nipping, punning, ribbing, etc.), and several of today’s longer words require the same modification: grinning, gripping, and grubbing.
And three words can be formed only by modifying the root before adding the suffix and adding a prefix: unpinning, unrigging, and upbringing.
All that requires abstract thinking, patience, and focus. For solvers who enjoy the challenge of an -ING Bee, LexiConnexxions has prepared a more detailed guide; you can find it HERE.
WORD NOTES
Many players were surprised by the exclusion of burring from today's Bee. It’s been possible in two Bees (including today’s), but has never ben accepted. The root word burr has always been accepted in the Bee, and it would seem to make sense to include its verb forms, none of which are obscure or rare. Merriam-Webster offers several definitions for this familiar verb:intransitive verb: 1: to speak with a burr; or 2: to make a whirring soundtransitive verb: 1: to pronounce with a burr; or 2: a: to form into a projecting edge or b: to remove burrs from
One of today’s words, brig, has several definitions that tell an interesting story.
Merriam-Webster’s first definition of brig is “a 2-masted square-rigged sailing ship” and adds that brig is shortened from brigantine, which M-W further defines as “a 2-masted sailing ship that is square-rigged except for a fore-and-aft mainsail.” For brigantine, etymonline.com adds “1520s, from French brigandin (15c.), from Italian brigantino, perhaps ‘skirmishing vessel, pirate ship,’ from brigante ‘skirmisher, pirate, brigand’ from brigare ‘to fight’ (see brigade and compare brigand).”
M-W’s next definition for brig is “a place (as on a ship) for temporary confinement of offenders in the U.S. Navy” and “a guardhouse, a prison.” According to etymonline.com, “The meaning ‘a ship's jail’ is by 1841, American English, perhaps from the use of such vessels as prison ships upon retirement from active duty.”
M-W’s third definition for brig is as an abbreviation of brigade or brigadier, both of which also trace back to the Italian brigare “to fight.”
LexiConnexxions has, accordingly, included entries for brig in the LexiTopics reports on Law, Crime & Courts, Nautical & Maritime, and Weapons & Warfare. It's also in the LexiConnexxions WordPlay report on Clipped Words and Phrases, HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3083 G B I N P R UToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3083 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its two pangrams BURPING and UPBRINGING make their third appearance today.
No new words were added today, and none removed.
Only one of today’s words has any Bee “history,” and that’s gigging; it was excluded from eight Bees before being accepted in 2022. LexiConnexxions maintains a listing of all such OUT-IN words HERE.
SOLV-ING TIPS
Many Bee players don’t care for puzzles that include I+N+G, because of the idea that one can simply slap -ING onto verb roots to make words. But it’s rarely so easy, as illustrated by today’s Bee.
Of the 56 words in today’s solution set, 42 (75%) end with the -ING suffix. Of those 42 words, only eight can be made by the simple addition of -ING to a root, without modifying the root: bringing, burning, burping, inurning, pinging, purring, ringing, and ruining.
A large number of today’s answers can be made only by “seeing” words that are not in today’s Bee at all. Why?
Many of today’s answers are formed from root verbs that end in E (a letter that is not in today’s Bee), from which the E must be dropped before -ING can be added: binging, bribing, brining, gibing, griping, inuring, pining, piping, pruning, purging, ruing and urging. So, a solver must “see” the invisible words brine, gibe, gripe, etc.
Many others are formed from root verbs that are just two or three letters long that can never be in the Bee at all (because Bee words must be at least four letters long): binning, bugging, gigging, ginning, gunning, inning, nipping, pigging, pinning, punning, ribbing, rigging, ripping, rubbing, ruing, running, and upping. To find these words, a solver must “see” invisible short words like bin, bug, rue, up, etc.
Most of the answers formed by these short verbs require doubling of the final letter before adding -ING (nipping, punning, ribbing, etc.), and several of today’s longer words require the same modification: grinning, gripping, and grubbing.
And three words can be formed only by modifying the root before adding the suffix and adding a prefix: unpinning, unrigging, and upbringing.
All that requires abstract thinking, patience, and focus. For solvers who enjoy the challenge of an -ING Bee, LexiConnexxions has prepared a more detailed guide; you can find it HERE.
WORD NOTES
Many players were surprised by the exclusion of burring from today's Bee. It’s been possible in two Bees (including today’s), but has never ben accepted. The root word burr has always been accepted in the Bee, and it would seem to make sense to include its verb forms, none of which are obscure or rare. Merriam-Webster offers several definitions for this familiar verb:intransitive verb: 1: to speak with a burr; or 2: to make a whirring soundtransitive verb: 1: to pronounce with a burr; or 2: a: to form into a projecting edge or b: to remove burrs from
One of today’s words, brig, has several definitions that tell an interesting story.
Merriam-Webster’s first definition of brig is “a 2-masted square-rigged sailing ship” and adds that brig is shortened from brigantine, which M-W further defines as “a 2-masted sailing ship that is square-rigged except for a fore-and-aft mainsail.” For brigantine, etymonline.com adds “1520s, from French brigandin (15c.), from Italian brigantino, perhaps ‘skirmishing vessel, pirate ship,’ from brigante ‘skirmisher, pirate, brigand’ from brigare ‘to fight’ (see brigade and compare brigand).”
M-W’s next definition for brig is “a place (as on a ship) for temporary confinement of offenders in the U.S. Navy” and “a guardhouse, a prison.” According to etymonline.com, “The meaning ‘a ship's jail’ is by 1841, American English, perhaps from the use of such vessels as prison ships upon retirement from active duty.”
M-W’s third definition for brig is as an abbreviation of brigade or brigadier, both of which also trace back to the Italian brigare “to fight.”
LexiConnexxions has, accordingly, included entries for brig in the LexiTopics reports on Law, Crime & Courts, Nautical & Maritime, and Weapons & Warfare. It's also in the LexiConnexxions WordPlay report on Clipped Words and Phrases, HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-15
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3082 N A C I L M YToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3082 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/15/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
NEW RESOURCE WordPlay Report: Ye Olde Wordes This new WordPlay report compiles and defines words in the Spelling Bee lexicon that standard dictionaries label as archaic, obsolete, or old-fashioned. Bee solvers may find this compilation of interest because of the Spelling Bee rule that “obscure” words are not used in the Bee. Review them HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set with its three pangrams INIMICALLY, MANIACALLY, and MANICALLY makes its second appearance today and introduces two new words to the Bee lexicon: mainly and minimally. Both of these words are forms of words that were already in the Bee lexicon (main, minimal), so while they have not been used before, they don’t really feel new.
Four of today’s answers had been disallowed before being accepted: annal (disallowed 36x), canna (32x), liminal (1x), and manila (1x).
One word that was possible today but was not selected, minyan, has a complex Bee history: It was excluded from the first three Bees in which it was possible, then used the next seven times it was possible, then excluded again (for good?) in 2024. It’s one of only 22 words in the Bee lexicon to have this OUT-IN-OUT pattern. LexiConnexxions has gathered them HERE.
Though we can’t ever know for sure if player suggestions influence the Bee editor’s decisions about words added or removed, it can’t hurt to write with ideas. The New York Times provides an online form HERE where players can suggest words. Players may also email their suggestions to buzzwords@nytimes.com, especially if they wish to include more information than the form allows.
This letter set and the three pangrams were first used on August 3, 2018, when the Bee was not quite three months old. A quick look at those early Bees suggests that the Bee editor was (naturally) feeling his way along in the refinement of what was then a brand-new daily puzzle with a rapidly growing audience. In that first use of today’s letter set, the center letter was C and the solution set had 52 words. In addition to the three pangrams, three words made their debuts that day: calmly, clammy, and iliac; iliac had been disallowed five times before being accepted that day. Another word that was selected for that puzzle, laically, would be discontinued in 2020.
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s 60-word Bee is well above the historical averages for words per Bee (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). Though the average size of the solution sets has not changed over the past two years, there have been enough long-ish Bees in the past several weeks to nudge those numbers up, as reported in the Bee Buzz for October 13 (scroll down).
Of the 24 letters that have been used in the center, N ranks 6th. (Neither X or S have been center letter.)
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee is a festival of suffixes, with -AL and -LY working alone (clinical, manly, etc.) or together (clinically, minimally, etc.) When a puzzle includes A, L, and Y, it’s a good strategy to work both forwards and backwards; for example, you might spot cynical, then go “backwards” by removing the suffix -AL to reveal cynic, then move “forward” to add the second suffix -LY to reveal cynically. There are several groups of related words in today’s Bee (far more than average):
anal anally cannily canny clinic clinical clinically [and the related clinician] cynic cynical cynicallyinimical inimically lamina laminal main mainly mania maniac maniacal maniacally manic manically minim minima minimal minimally WORD NOTES Caiman? Cayman? It doesn’t happen as often as one would expect, so it’s fun when a Bee includes two variants of the same word. Today we have caiman and cayman, both words accepted spellings for the smallish crocodile native to parts of Central and South America. Merriam-Webster gives caiman as the preferred spelling, adding “or less commonly cayman.”
Ye Olde Wordes? As mentioned above, one of today’s words, annal, had been disallowed from 36 Bees before being accepted in 2020; it makes its 107th appearance today, and has become one of the most frequently-appearing words in the Spelling Bee. Annal is a very old back-formation from the more commonly-used plural form annals. While Merriam-Webster labels annal as “archaic,” other Bee-ish dictionaries (Collins and NOAD) do not, and it’s not impossible to imagine that the Bee editor waffled on this one for a while. Today’s Bee includes another word that M-W labels as old-obsolete: mainly: M-W’s first definition is “obsolete: in a forceful manner.” These are among the handful of Bee words that dictionaries label as archaic, obsolete, or old-fashioned, as reported in this new WordPlay report from LexiConnexxions.
Did you spot the toponym in today’s Bee? It’s manila, an adjective used in phrases like manila hemp and manila paper, products that were developed in (and took their name from) Manila in the Philippines. It’s sometimes spelled manilla, but that variant has never been selected for the Bee. LexiConnexxions has gathered up a veritable gazetteer of all the toponyms (words derived from place names) in the Bee lexicon; begin your travels HERE.
Did you spot the blend word? It’s niacin. According to etymonline, the word for "pellagra-preventing vitamin in enriched bread," was coined in 1942, from the first syllables of nicotinic acid + chemical suffix -in. The etymonline article continues, "It was suggested by the American Medical Association as a more commercially viable name than nicotinic acid. The new name was found to be necessary because some anti-tobacco groups warned against enriched bread because it would foster the cigarette habit. [Cooperative Consumer, Feb. 28, 1942]" LexiConnexxions has gathered a collection of blend and portmanteaux words from the Bee lexicon; see them HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3082 N A C I L M YToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3082 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/15/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
NEW RESOURCE WordPlay Report: Ye Olde Wordes This new WordPlay report compiles and defines words in the Spelling Bee lexicon that standard dictionaries label as archaic, obsolete, or old-fashioned. Bee solvers may find this compilation of interest because of the Spelling Bee rule that “obscure” words are not used in the Bee. Review them HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set with its three pangrams INIMICALLY, MANIACALLY, and MANICALLY makes its second appearance today and introduces two new words to the Bee lexicon: mainly and minimally. Both of these words are forms of words that were already in the Bee lexicon (main, minimal), so while they have not been used before, they don’t really feel new.
Four of today’s answers had been disallowed before being accepted: annal (disallowed 36x), canna (32x), liminal (1x), and manila (1x).
One word that was possible today but was not selected, minyan, has a complex Bee history: It was excluded from the first three Bees in which it was possible, then used the next seven times it was possible, then excluded again (for good?) in 2024. It’s one of only 22 words in the Bee lexicon to have this OUT-IN-OUT pattern. LexiConnexxions has gathered them HERE.
Though we can’t ever know for sure if player suggestions influence the Bee editor’s decisions about words added or removed, it can’t hurt to write with ideas. The New York Times provides an online form HERE where players can suggest words. Players may also email their suggestions to buzzwords@nytimes.com, especially if they wish to include more information than the form allows.
This letter set and the three pangrams were first used on August 3, 2018, when the Bee was not quite three months old. A quick look at those early Bees suggests that the Bee editor was (naturally) feeling his way along in the refinement of what was then a brand-new daily puzzle with a rapidly growing audience. In that first use of today’s letter set, the center letter was C and the solution set had 52 words. In addition to the three pangrams, three words made their debuts that day: calmly, clammy, and iliac; iliac had been disallowed five times before being accepted that day. Another word that was selected for that puzzle, laically, would be discontinued in 2020.
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s 60-word Bee is well above the historical averages for words per Bee (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). Though the average size of the solution sets has not changed over the past two years, there have been enough long-ish Bees in the past several weeks to nudge those numbers up, as reported in the Bee Buzz for October 13 (scroll down).
Of the 24 letters that have been used in the center, N ranks 6th. (Neither X or S have been center letter.)
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee is a festival of suffixes, with -AL and -LY working alone (clinical, manly, etc.) or together (clinically, minimally, etc.) When a puzzle includes A, L, and Y, it’s a good strategy to work both forwards and backwards; for example, you might spot cynical, then go “backwards” by removing the suffix -AL to reveal cynic, then move “forward” to add the second suffix -LY to reveal cynically. There are several groups of related words in today’s Bee (far more than average):
anal anally cannily canny clinic clinical clinically [and the related clinician] cynic cynical cynicallyinimical inimically lamina laminal main mainly mania maniac maniacal maniacally manic manically minim minima minimal minimally WORD NOTES Caiman? Cayman? It doesn’t happen as often as one would expect, so it’s fun when a Bee includes two variants of the same word. Today we have caiman and cayman, both words accepted spellings for the smallish crocodile native to parts of Central and South America. Merriam-Webster gives caiman as the preferred spelling, adding “or less commonly cayman.”
Ye Olde Wordes? As mentioned above, one of today’s words, annal, had been disallowed from 36 Bees before being accepted in 2020; it makes its 107th appearance today, and has become one of the most frequently-appearing words in the Spelling Bee. Annal is a very old back-formation from the more commonly-used plural form annals. While Merriam-Webster labels annal as “archaic,” other Bee-ish dictionaries (Collins and NOAD) do not, and it’s not impossible to imagine that the Bee editor waffled on this one for a while. Today’s Bee includes another word that M-W labels as old-obsolete: mainly: M-W’s first definition is “obsolete: in a forceful manner.” These are among the handful of Bee words that dictionaries label as archaic, obsolete, or old-fashioned, as reported in this new WordPlay report from LexiConnexxions.
Did you spot the toponym in today’s Bee? It’s manila, an adjective used in phrases like manila hemp and manila paper, products that were developed in (and took their name from) Manila in the Philippines. It’s sometimes spelled manilla, but that variant has never been selected for the Bee. LexiConnexxions has gathered up a veritable gazetteer of all the toponyms (words derived from place names) in the Bee lexicon; begin your travels HERE.
Did you spot the blend word? It’s niacin. According to etymonline, the word for "pellagra-preventing vitamin in enriched bread," was coined in 1942, from the first syllables of nicotinic acid + chemical suffix -in. The etymonline article continues, "It was suggested by the American Medical Association as a more commercially viable name than nicotinic acid. The new name was found to be necessary because some anti-tobacco groups warned against enriched bread because it would foster the cigarette habit. [Cooperative Consumer, Feb. 28, 1942]" LexiConnexxions has gathered a collection of blend and portmanteaux words from the Bee lexicon; see them HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-14
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3081 E B I K L O XToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3081 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/14/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram BOXLIKE make their second appearance today.
No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none discontinued.
One word that could be formed from today’s letters, ilex, was used in one very early Bee (September 20, 2018), but was discontinued the next time it was possible (2019) and has never been selected since. Though the word is commonly used as a synonym for holly, it is also a genus name, and thus capitalized, which may explain its exclusion. It is one of 267 such IN-OUT words in the Bee lexicon; LexiConnexxions maintains a list of them all HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Whenever the Spelling Bee includes a rare letter, solvers experience a little jolt of delight – or dread. Some players love the extra challenge of J, Q or X, while others enjoy a more straightforward letter set. These special Bees don’t happen very often. Only 61 of the Bee’s 1903 pangrams include X, and those 61 pangrams have been used in only 141 of the 3081 Bees to date. X has never been the center letter. LexiConnexxions has documented all the "rare letter" Bees HERE.
With just 23 words, today’s Bee is one of the small ones; only 169 of 3081 Bees have had fewer letters.
WORD NOTES
Today’s puzzle includes one of the handful of British English words in the Bee lexicon; bloke is labeled as “British English” in each of four Bee-ish dictionaries (M-W abridged and unabridged, Collins, NOAD). LexiConnexxions has documented all the "chiefly" British, Scottish, and Australian Bee words HERE.
Did you spot the eponym? The skateboarding and snowboarding term ollie derives from Ollie, which was the nickname of American skateboarder Alan Gelfand (b. 1963). It’s one of dozens of eponyms in the Bee lexicon; LexiConnexxions maintains a list of them all HERE.
Boobie? Booby? In today’s Spelling Bee forum, a few players wondered why boobie (the bird) was not in today’s Bee. The bird booby is always spelled with a Y, unless it's the plural form (boobies). The Bee has included booby each of the 38 times it has been possible, most recently on July 1 2025. It’s one of nearly 100 bird types named in the Bee lexicon; all of them are in the LexiTopics report on Animals, HERE. Because boobies are rather tame, the word has also been used to mean a foolish, easily duped person. In that sense, it is one of hundreds of rude and derogatory epithets in the Bee lexicon, many of them using names of animals as a means of insulting another person. LexiConnexxions has gathered them all in the LexiTopics report on People: Character and Appearance, HERE. Here are all the animal words in the Bee lexicon that are also used as epithets for different sorts of people, or to describe certain aspects of human behavior or character. Some are nice, some are nasty. Those marked with asterisks have been discontinued from the Bee lexicon.
asses bantam biddy bird birdbrain bitch* booby buck bull bullheaded bunny calf cattle chick chicken clam cock colt conch coon* coot cormorant crab cuckoo dodo dragon duck fledgling frog goat gorilla grub gull hangdog hellcat hepcat hound jackal jaybird lamb leech limpet lion mice mutt packrat parrot puppy ratty toad toady varmint whelp wildcat wolf worm
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3081 E B I K L O XToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3081 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/14/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram BOXLIKE make their second appearance today.
No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none discontinued.
One word that could be formed from today’s letters, ilex, was used in one very early Bee (September 20, 2018), but was discontinued the next time it was possible (2019) and has never been selected since. Though the word is commonly used as a synonym for holly, it is also a genus name, and thus capitalized, which may explain its exclusion. It is one of 267 such IN-OUT words in the Bee lexicon; LexiConnexxions maintains a list of them all HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Whenever the Spelling Bee includes a rare letter, solvers experience a little jolt of delight – or dread. Some players love the extra challenge of J, Q or X, while others enjoy a more straightforward letter set. These special Bees don’t happen very often. Only 61 of the Bee’s 1903 pangrams include X, and those 61 pangrams have been used in only 141 of the 3081 Bees to date. X has never been the center letter. LexiConnexxions has documented all the "rare letter" Bees HERE.
With just 23 words, today’s Bee is one of the small ones; only 169 of 3081 Bees have had fewer letters.
WORD NOTES
Today’s puzzle includes one of the handful of British English words in the Bee lexicon; bloke is labeled as “British English” in each of four Bee-ish dictionaries (M-W abridged and unabridged, Collins, NOAD). LexiConnexxions has documented all the "chiefly" British, Scottish, and Australian Bee words HERE.
Did you spot the eponym? The skateboarding and snowboarding term ollie derives from Ollie, which was the nickname of American skateboarder Alan Gelfand (b. 1963). It’s one of dozens of eponyms in the Bee lexicon; LexiConnexxions maintains a list of them all HERE.
Boobie? Booby? In today’s Spelling Bee forum, a few players wondered why boobie (the bird) was not in today’s Bee. The bird booby is always spelled with a Y, unless it's the plural form (boobies). The Bee has included booby each of the 38 times it has been possible, most recently on July 1 2025. It’s one of nearly 100 bird types named in the Bee lexicon; all of them are in the LexiTopics report on Animals, HERE. Because boobies are rather tame, the word has also been used to mean a foolish, easily duped person. In that sense, it is one of hundreds of rude and derogatory epithets in the Bee lexicon, many of them using names of animals as a means of insulting another person. LexiConnexxions has gathered them all in the LexiTopics report on People: Character and Appearance, HERE. Here are all the animal words in the Bee lexicon that are also used as epithets for different sorts of people, or to describe certain aspects of human behavior or character. Some are nice, some are nasty. Those marked with asterisks have been discontinued from the Bee lexicon.
asses bantam biddy bird birdbrain bitch* booby buck bull bullheaded bunny calf cattle chick chicken clam cock colt conch coon* coot cormorant crab cuckoo dodo dragon duck fledgling frog goat gorilla grub gull hangdog hellcat hepcat hound jackal jaybird lamb leech limpet lion mice mutt packrat parrot puppy ratty toad toady varmint whelp wildcat wolf worm
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-13
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3080 D A I N O P RToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3080 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/13/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set, with its two pangrams PARANOID and RAINDROP, makes its fifth appearance today. Unless the Bee editor changes his practice of never using a letter set more than five times, we won’t see this one again.
No new words were added today, and none discontinued.
One of today’s words, pandan, is brand new to the Bee lexicon; it had been disallowed from 20 Bees before being accepted on September 30, and it makes its second appearance today.
Two other words in today’s Bee had been excluded before being selected: dorado (excluded 26x) and rando (excluded 12x).
The word parador was possible today, but it was discontinued in 2025 after having lodged in ten Bees.
DESIGN NOTES
With 51 words, today’s Bee is a little long, well past historical averages for words per Bee (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). Though the average size of the solution sets has not changed over the past two years, there have been enough long-ish Bees in the past several weeks to nudge those numbers up; the average words per Bee was 46.20 in September, and so far in October is 48.62. Is this a shift in editorial design, or just a bump? Only time will tell.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3080 D A I N O P RToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3080 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/13/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set, with its two pangrams PARANOID and RAINDROP, makes its fifth appearance today. Unless the Bee editor changes his practice of never using a letter set more than five times, we won’t see this one again.
No new words were added today, and none discontinued.
One of today’s words, pandan, is brand new to the Bee lexicon; it had been disallowed from 20 Bees before being accepted on September 30, and it makes its second appearance today.
Two other words in today’s Bee had been excluded before being selected: dorado (excluded 26x) and rando (excluded 12x).
The word parador was possible today, but it was discontinued in 2025 after having lodged in ten Bees.
DESIGN NOTES
With 51 words, today’s Bee is a little long, well past historical averages for words per Bee (44.89 in 2025, 42.75 in 2024). Though the average size of the solution sets has not changed over the past two years, there have been enough long-ish Bees in the past several weeks to nudge those numbers up; the average words per Bee was 46.20 in September, and so far in October is 48.62. Is this a shift in editorial design, or just a bump? Only time will tell.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-12
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3079 E A H M P T YToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3079 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
NEW REPORT Pangrams with Irregular Histories The vast majority of Spelling Bees use recycled letter sets, and though different center letters are almost always used, the pangram(s) almost always remain the same with each subsequent re-use. Except for when they don’t. LexiConnexxions has corralled the outliers HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram EMPATHY make their fifth appearance today. Unless the Bee editor changes his practice of never using a letter set more than five times, we won’t see this one again.
The word tappet was finally included today, after having been excluded from 38 Bees. Among the 280+ such OUT-IN words, only five have been excluded more times before being selected: tipi (55x), luff (50x), annatto (48x), torta (43x), and tallit (42x).
Five other OUT-IN words are in today’s Bee: empath (disallowed 2x), hamate (1x), heme (7x), and peaty (2x).
Two words that were possible today were discontinued from the Bee lexicon some time ago: etyma (used 4x before being discontinued) and thema (3x).
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s Bee has nothing out of the ordinary, except a 50+ solution set, which seems to be more common lately.
Though E is the most common letter used in English, its frequency as center letter ranks only 12th, as shown in this LexiConnexxions report on all center letters in Bee history.
SOLVING TIPS
The English language includes a large number of clipped or shortened words, and the Bee lexicon has a good number of them. Today’s Bee includes three such words: empath, meth, and temp. Good solvers look for shortened words. LexiConnexxions has compiled this WordPlay report that includes all these clipped or shortened words and phrases in the Spelling Bee lexicon.
WORD NOTES
Six of today’s answers (11%) are terms of human anatomy and physiology: eyeteeth, hamate, heme, pate (top of the head) teeth, teethe. LexiConnexxions has identified hundreds of words on this subject and has gathered them all (with definitions) in the LexiTopics report on Human Anatomy. (Words specifically related to animal anatomy are in the LexiTopics report on Animals.)
The Bee word mayhem derives from the same root as maim, meaning to injure. We use mayhem nowadays to mean almost any kind of willful destruction, killing, or gross injury. It is one of many words in the Bee lexicon related to human violence. LexiConnexxions has compiled them in the “Maiming and Wounding” section of the LexiTopics report People: Movements and Motions.
The new Bee word tappet and its definition (“a lever or projection moved by some other piece [such as a cam[ or intended to tap or touch something else to cause a particular motion” per M-W) will be added to the LexiTopics report on Transportation & Travel.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3079 E A H M P T YToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3079 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
NEW REPORT Pangrams with Irregular Histories The vast majority of Spelling Bees use recycled letter sets, and though different center letters are almost always used, the pangram(s) almost always remain the same with each subsequent re-use. Except for when they don’t. LexiConnexxions has corralled the outliers HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its sole pangram EMPATHY make their fifth appearance today. Unless the Bee editor changes his practice of never using a letter set more than five times, we won’t see this one again.
The word tappet was finally included today, after having been excluded from 38 Bees. Among the 280+ such OUT-IN words, only five have been excluded more times before being selected: tipi (55x), luff (50x), annatto (48x), torta (43x), and tallit (42x).
Five other OUT-IN words are in today’s Bee: empath (disallowed 2x), hamate (1x), heme (7x), and peaty (2x).
Two words that were possible today were discontinued from the Bee lexicon some time ago: etyma (used 4x before being discontinued) and thema (3x).
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s Bee has nothing out of the ordinary, except a 50+ solution set, which seems to be more common lately.
Though E is the most common letter used in English, its frequency as center letter ranks only 12th, as shown in this LexiConnexxions report on all center letters in Bee history.
SOLVING TIPS
The English language includes a large number of clipped or shortened words, and the Bee lexicon has a good number of them. Today’s Bee includes three such words: empath, meth, and temp. Good solvers look for shortened words. LexiConnexxions has compiled this WordPlay report that includes all these clipped or shortened words and phrases in the Spelling Bee lexicon.
WORD NOTES
Six of today’s answers (11%) are terms of human anatomy and physiology: eyeteeth, hamate, heme, pate (top of the head) teeth, teethe. LexiConnexxions has identified hundreds of words on this subject and has gathered them all (with definitions) in the LexiTopics report on Human Anatomy. (Words specifically related to animal anatomy are in the LexiTopics report on Animals.)
The Bee word mayhem derives from the same root as maim, meaning to injure. We use mayhem nowadays to mean almost any kind of willful destruction, killing, or gross injury. It is one of many words in the Bee lexicon related to human violence. LexiConnexxions has compiled them in the “Maiming and Wounding” section of the LexiTopics report People: Movements and Motions.
The new Bee word tappet and its definition (“a lever or projection moved by some other piece [such as a cam[ or intended to tap or touch something else to cause a particular motion” per M-W) will be added to the LexiTopics report on Transportation & Travel.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-11
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3078 B A L N O T UToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3078 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/11/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
NEW REPORT Pangrams with Irregular Histories The vast majority of Spelling Bees use recycled letter sets, and though different center letters are almost always used, the pangram(s) almost always remain the same with each subsequent re-use. Except for when they don’t. LexiConnexxions has corralled the outliers HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram BUTANOL makes its début today. It brings only one other new word with it, unbolt, which is another form of three words already in the Bee lexicon, so it doesn’t really feel new. This has happened more often recently: that a new pangram will either bring no other new words, or brings only words that are forms of existing Bee words. The rate at which truly new words have been added has plummeted; the continued judicious use of S and of E+R could really bring some life to this languishing lexicon.
Two of today’s words – nanobot and tubal – had been disallowed from the Bee before they were accepted. Each had been rejected just once (2019 and 2020, respectively) and each was used every time thereafter. (LexiConnexxions has reported all such OUT-IN words HERE.) A single miss followed by an unbroken string of uses suggests an editorial slip; many of these incidents are recorded in LexiConnexxions' collection of Spelling Bee Goofs and Gaffes.
DESIGN NOTES 37 of the 51 words (72.55%) begin with center letter B. Though it seems that B is center letter very often, it ranks 11th of the 24 letters that have been used in the center. A summary of all center letters in Bee history is HERE.
It’s interesting that though O+U+T are there today, not one word begins with OUT. (There are 45 words in the Bee lexicon that begin with OUT-.) And only three words in today's puzzle begin with UN-.
SOLVING TIPS
In a puzzle with B N A O – if you spot one primate (baboon), look for the other one (bonobo), and then look for the long yellow fruit that they might enjoy (banana).
Today’s Bee includes at least 3 reduplicative words in which syllables repeat exactly or nearly so (words like chichi, pompom, wigwag). The Bee lexicon contains dozens of words of this type, as reported in the LexiConnexxions WordPlay report HERE.
WORD NOTES
According to Spelling Bee Buddy (as of 10AM ET), less than a third of Bee solvers found today's pangram.
Here's what Spelling Bee editor Sam Ezersky says about pangram selection:
"I actually have a particularly high bar with the pangram alone versus the rest of the wordlist, because that is the lynchpin of the puzzle, right? There are some solvers that won’t even begin solving the rest of their puzzle until they find their pangrams. So I recognize the importance of that."
"I want to offer fun pangrams…"
"If the pangram is not something that my audience can even figure out in the first place or is enjoyable to figure out, then what’s the point of the whole puzzle?"
"You're solving for many reasons, but if you're not even familiar with the pangram or one of the set of pangrams, that what's even the point? I want this to be a puzzle that is truly, as hackneyed as it sounds, for everybody."
"To me, the pangram is the linchpin of the whole puzzle — if you don’t have a fighting chance at getting it, then what’s even the point? Before I even go about choosing which letter goes in the center, or curating the word list, I must first green-light the pangram set in the first place."
Did today's pangram meet these criteria?
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3078 B A L N O T UToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3078 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/11/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
NEW REPORT Pangrams with Irregular Histories The vast majority of Spelling Bees use recycled letter sets, and though different center letters are almost always used, the pangram(s) almost always remain the same with each subsequent re-use. Except for when they don’t. LexiConnexxions has corralled the outliers HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram BUTANOL makes its début today. It brings only one other new word with it, unbolt, which is another form of three words already in the Bee lexicon, so it doesn’t really feel new. This has happened more often recently: that a new pangram will either bring no other new words, or brings only words that are forms of existing Bee words. The rate at which truly new words have been added has plummeted; the continued judicious use of S and of E+R could really bring some life to this languishing lexicon.
Two of today’s words – nanobot and tubal – had been disallowed from the Bee before they were accepted. Each had been rejected just once (2019 and 2020, respectively) and each was used every time thereafter. (LexiConnexxions has reported all such OUT-IN words HERE.) A single miss followed by an unbroken string of uses suggests an editorial slip; many of these incidents are recorded in LexiConnexxions' collection of Spelling Bee Goofs and Gaffes.
DESIGN NOTES 37 of the 51 words (72.55%) begin with center letter B. Though it seems that B is center letter very often, it ranks 11th of the 24 letters that have been used in the center. A summary of all center letters in Bee history is HERE.
It’s interesting that though O+U+T are there today, not one word begins with OUT. (There are 45 words in the Bee lexicon that begin with OUT-.) And only three words in today's puzzle begin with UN-.
SOLVING TIPS
In a puzzle with B N A O – if you spot one primate (baboon), look for the other one (bonobo), and then look for the long yellow fruit that they might enjoy (banana).
Today’s Bee includes at least 3 reduplicative words in which syllables repeat exactly or nearly so (words like chichi, pompom, wigwag). The Bee lexicon contains dozens of words of this type, as reported in the LexiConnexxions WordPlay report HERE.
WORD NOTES
According to Spelling Bee Buddy (as of 10AM ET), less than a third of Bee solvers found today's pangram.
Here's what Spelling Bee editor Sam Ezersky says about pangram selection:
"I actually have a particularly high bar with the pangram alone versus the rest of the wordlist, because that is the lynchpin of the puzzle, right? There are some solvers that won’t even begin solving the rest of their puzzle until they find their pangrams. So I recognize the importance of that."
"I want to offer fun pangrams…"
"If the pangram is not something that my audience can even figure out in the first place or is enjoyable to figure out, then what’s the point of the whole puzzle?"
"You're solving for many reasons, but if you're not even familiar with the pangram or one of the set of pangrams, that what's even the point? I want this to be a puzzle that is truly, as hackneyed as it sounds, for everybody."
"To me, the pangram is the linchpin of the whole puzzle — if you don’t have a fighting chance at getting it, then what’s even the point? Before I even go about choosing which letter goes in the center, or curating the word list, I must first green-light the pangram set in the first place."
Did today's pangram meet these criteria?
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-10
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3077 C A I M O R TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3077/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/10/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
NEW REPORT Pangrams with Irregular Histories The vast majority of Spelling Bees use recycled letter sets, and though different center letters are almost always used, the pangram(s) almost always remain the same with each subsequent re-use. Except for when they don’t. LexiConnexxions has corralled the outliers HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram AROMATIC makes its third appearance today.
No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none removed.
But nine of today’s 63 words have “history” in the Bee lexicon.
Five words that were OUT before they were IN now appear frequently in the Bee:
arco disallowed 4x before being acceptedcami 5xcocci 3xcoir 25xmorocco 8x
And four words that were possible today were once IN but are all now OUT:
carioca used 8x before being discontinuedcoact 24xcoactor 12xmarcato 1x
LexiConnexxions records all the OUT-IN words HERE, and all the IN-OUT words here.
DESIGN NOTES
Other than a moderately large solution set (63 words), there’s nothing really remarkable about today’s Bee: no rare letters, no BINGO. And with seven common letters, the solution set comprises commonly-used Bee words, perhaps making for an easy solve for long-term players.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee has several “clipped” or shortened words: cami(sole), camo(uflage), coati(mundi), croc(odile, not the shoe!), tarmac(adam) and two words that originated as combining forms: macro and micro. It can be difficult to “see” shortened words in the honeycomb of letters, but as the English language includes so many words of this type, good solvers keep “shortened words” on their mental checklist of types of words to look for. The Bee lexicon includes hundreds of clipped or shortened words, and LexiConnexxions has gathered them into a single list, HERE.
Even though today’s puzzle does not include the letter S, it does include several plurals: cacti, cirri, cocci, and croci.
The presence of I + C should prompt a hunt for words that end with -IC, and this Bee includes ten: aortic, arctic, AROMATIC, atomic, attic, citric, comic, mimic, tactic, toric.
WORD NOTES
Today’s Bee includes several musical terms: two from Italian (arco and toccata), one from French (rococo), and one from Portuguese (maraca). LexiConnexxions has gathered all the musical terms in the Bee lexicon in the LexiTopics report on Music, HERE.
As happens every time morocco appears in the Bee, some players will wonder why and how the name of a city, presumably capitalized, can be included in a puzzle that is not supposed to include proper nouns. Good solvers keep a tab open to a standard dictionary of American English, where this sort of question can be easily resolved. The English language includes many, many toponyms, words that derive from place names, and they typically slide into common noun or common adjective status, that is, uncapitalized. The common Bee word morocco is one such word: it’s a soft leather made from goatskin, probably named for Morocco, but spelled with a small c in English.
Another toponym in today’s puzzle is attic; as detailed in the LexiTopics report on Buildings, Architecture, and Construction, “Attic in classical architecture meant ‘a small, square decorative column of the type often used in a low story above a building's main facade,’ a feature associated with the region around Athens (that is, Attic). Spelled with a capital A, Attic means "of, relating to, or having the characteristics of Athens or its ancient civilization." The word attic then was applied by architects to ‘a low decorative facade above the main story of a building’ (1690s in English), and it then came to mean the space enclosed by such a structure.”
The Bee lexicon includes a large number of toponyms; LexiConnexxions has gathered them all in a WordPlay report HERE.
There’s also an eponym (a word derived from a personal or brand name) hidden in today’s word list: tarmac, a short form of tarmacadam (also a Bee word). The word tarmac comes from the trademark Tarmac, which is a shortening of tarmacadam, from tar + macadam, after John Loudon McAdam †1836, Scottish civil engineer who introduced this method of road construction. So tarmac appears in several of LexiConnexxions’ reports: the LexiTopics report on Transportation and Travel; the previously-mentioned WordPlay list of clipped or shortened words; the WordPlay list HERE of all eponyms in the Bee lexicon (words derived from personal or brand names); and the WordPlay list of brand names and trademarks in the Bee lexicon.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3077 C A I M O R TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3077/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/10/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
NEW REPORT Pangrams with Irregular Histories The vast majority of Spelling Bees use recycled letter sets, and though different center letters are almost always used, the pangram(s) almost always remain the same with each subsequent re-use. Except for when they don’t. LexiConnexxions has corralled the outliers HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram AROMATIC makes its third appearance today.
No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none removed.
But nine of today’s 63 words have “history” in the Bee lexicon.
Five words that were OUT before they were IN now appear frequently in the Bee:
arco disallowed 4x before being acceptedcami 5xcocci 3xcoir 25xmorocco 8x
And four words that were possible today were once IN but are all now OUT:
carioca used 8x before being discontinuedcoact 24xcoactor 12xmarcato 1x
LexiConnexxions records all the OUT-IN words HERE, and all the IN-OUT words here.
DESIGN NOTES
Other than a moderately large solution set (63 words), there’s nothing really remarkable about today’s Bee: no rare letters, no BINGO. And with seven common letters, the solution set comprises commonly-used Bee words, perhaps making for an easy solve for long-term players.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee has several “clipped” or shortened words: cami(sole), camo(uflage), coati(mundi), croc(odile, not the shoe!), tarmac(adam) and two words that originated as combining forms: macro and micro. It can be difficult to “see” shortened words in the honeycomb of letters, but as the English language includes so many words of this type, good solvers keep “shortened words” on their mental checklist of types of words to look for. The Bee lexicon includes hundreds of clipped or shortened words, and LexiConnexxions has gathered them into a single list, HERE.
Even though today’s puzzle does not include the letter S, it does include several plurals: cacti, cirri, cocci, and croci.
The presence of I + C should prompt a hunt for words that end with -IC, and this Bee includes ten: aortic, arctic, AROMATIC, atomic, attic, citric, comic, mimic, tactic, toric.
WORD NOTES
Today’s Bee includes several musical terms: two from Italian (arco and toccata), one from French (rococo), and one from Portuguese (maraca). LexiConnexxions has gathered all the musical terms in the Bee lexicon in the LexiTopics report on Music, HERE.
As happens every time morocco appears in the Bee, some players will wonder why and how the name of a city, presumably capitalized, can be included in a puzzle that is not supposed to include proper nouns. Good solvers keep a tab open to a standard dictionary of American English, where this sort of question can be easily resolved. The English language includes many, many toponyms, words that derive from place names, and they typically slide into common noun or common adjective status, that is, uncapitalized. The common Bee word morocco is one such word: it’s a soft leather made from goatskin, probably named for Morocco, but spelled with a small c in English.
Another toponym in today’s puzzle is attic; as detailed in the LexiTopics report on Buildings, Architecture, and Construction, “Attic in classical architecture meant ‘a small, square decorative column of the type often used in a low story above a building's main facade,’ a feature associated with the region around Athens (that is, Attic). Spelled with a capital A, Attic means "of, relating to, or having the characteristics of Athens or its ancient civilization." The word attic then was applied by architects to ‘a low decorative facade above the main story of a building’ (1690s in English), and it then came to mean the space enclosed by such a structure.”
The Bee lexicon includes a large number of toponyms; LexiConnexxions has gathered them all in a WordPlay report HERE.
There’s also an eponym (a word derived from a personal or brand name) hidden in today’s word list: tarmac, a short form of tarmacadam (also a Bee word). The word tarmac comes from the trademark Tarmac, which is a shortening of tarmacadam, from tar + macadam, after John Loudon McAdam †1836, Scottish civil engineer who introduced this method of road construction. So tarmac appears in several of LexiConnexxions’ reports: the LexiTopics report on Transportation and Travel; the previously-mentioned WordPlay list of clipped or shortened words; the WordPlay list HERE of all eponyms in the Bee lexicon (words derived from personal or brand names); and the WordPlay list of brand names and trademarks in the Bee lexicon.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-09
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3076 Y E G I L N TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3076 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/09/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set is used for the first time, and brings four new (ofc) pangrams – GENTILITY, INTELLIGENTLY, NEGLIGENTLY, TELLINGLY – and two other new words, niggly and yelling.
The very common word yelling was never possible until today; that is, there has never before been the right combination of letters in the Bee to form it. Other common words that were added recently include inventing, venting, vetoing, bodega, bondage, humor, unfilled.
The word niggly was added today after having been excluded from eight Bees, most recently on September 23. We can never know for sure why the Bee editor changed his mind about this word. The root verb niggle and its present participle niggling have always been used each time they were possible; the past tense niggled has never been possible.
Whenever yegg is possible, solvers look for it – and are disappointed. It was was used in the Bee eight times before being discontinued in 2021. Many solvers also looked in vain today for the lovely word genteelly; it was used in two Bees, but was discontinued from the lexicon in 2025. Perhaps fewer looked for nettly; it was used in 11 Bees before being discontinued in 2022. Both words are included in LexiConnexxions’ complete list of all such IN-OUT words, HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Two suffix combos – I+N+G and L+Y – are in today’s Bee, for only the 16th time in Bee history. On first glance, this Bee might seem to be another -ING fest, but the center letter Y limits the "gerund effect" significantly; only 6 of the 37 words end with the -ING suffix, and only one with -INGLY. The -LY suffix steals the show today, with 12 of 37 answers ending with this suffix (not including lily, of course).
Among the 24 letters used as center letter 2018-2025, Y ranks 17th in frequency of use, as shown in this LexiConnexxions report on all center letters in Bee history.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee has two accepted spellings of a single word: eyeing and eying. The Bee lexicon includes dozens of pairs and triplets of variant spellings; they don’t always appear together, but it’s always a good strategy to look for variant spellings, just in case.
A good solver keeps a mental checklist of word forms and elements to look for: suffixes, prefixes, plurals (mostly of Latin words), variant spellings, etc.
WORD NOTES
The entry and exit of words from the lexicon provides an opportunity to look at groups of related words in the Bee lexicon. It’s interesting to see, for example that though INTELLIGENTLY made its debut today, its root intelligent has never been in the Bee (because it has never been possible). The same is true for negligent/NEGLIGENTLY, telling/TELLINGLY, etc. For today, at least, we can blame that on the center letter Y.
In the word groups shown here, today’s new words are shown in italics; pangrams are shown in ALL CAPS; and words that have been discontinued are designated by asterisks.
intel intellect INTELLIGENCE INTELLIGENTLY INTELLIGIBLE
neglect NEGLECTING negligee negligence NEGLIGENTLY negligible
gent genteel genteelly* GENTILITY gentle gentled GENTLEMAN gentlemen gently
tell TELLINGLY telltale told
niggle niggly niggling
yell yelled yelling
All of today’s new words have been added to the relevant subject reports in the LexiTopics report series.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3076 Y E G I L N TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3076 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/09/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set is used for the first time, and brings four new (ofc) pangrams – GENTILITY, INTELLIGENTLY, NEGLIGENTLY, TELLINGLY – and two other new words, niggly and yelling.
The very common word yelling was never possible until today; that is, there has never before been the right combination of letters in the Bee to form it. Other common words that were added recently include inventing, venting, vetoing, bodega, bondage, humor, unfilled.
The word niggly was added today after having been excluded from eight Bees, most recently on September 23. We can never know for sure why the Bee editor changed his mind about this word. The root verb niggle and its present participle niggling have always been used each time they were possible; the past tense niggled has never been possible.
Whenever yegg is possible, solvers look for it – and are disappointed. It was was used in the Bee eight times before being discontinued in 2021. Many solvers also looked in vain today for the lovely word genteelly; it was used in two Bees, but was discontinued from the lexicon in 2025. Perhaps fewer looked for nettly; it was used in 11 Bees before being discontinued in 2022. Both words are included in LexiConnexxions’ complete list of all such IN-OUT words, HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Two suffix combos – I+N+G and L+Y – are in today’s Bee, for only the 16th time in Bee history. On first glance, this Bee might seem to be another -ING fest, but the center letter Y limits the "gerund effect" significantly; only 6 of the 37 words end with the -ING suffix, and only one with -INGLY. The -LY suffix steals the show today, with 12 of 37 answers ending with this suffix (not including lily, of course).
Among the 24 letters used as center letter 2018-2025, Y ranks 17th in frequency of use, as shown in this LexiConnexxions report on all center letters in Bee history.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee has two accepted spellings of a single word: eyeing and eying. The Bee lexicon includes dozens of pairs and triplets of variant spellings; they don’t always appear together, but it’s always a good strategy to look for variant spellings, just in case.
A good solver keeps a mental checklist of word forms and elements to look for: suffixes, prefixes, plurals (mostly of Latin words), variant spellings, etc.
WORD NOTES
The entry and exit of words from the lexicon provides an opportunity to look at groups of related words in the Bee lexicon. It’s interesting to see, for example that though INTELLIGENTLY made its debut today, its root intelligent has never been in the Bee (because it has never been possible). The same is true for negligent/NEGLIGENTLY, telling/TELLINGLY, etc. For today, at least, we can blame that on the center letter Y.
In the word groups shown here, today’s new words are shown in italics; pangrams are shown in ALL CAPS; and words that have been discontinued are designated by asterisks.
intel intellect INTELLIGENCE INTELLIGENTLY INTELLIGIBLE
neglect NEGLECTING negligee negligence NEGLIGENTLY negligible
gent genteel genteelly* GENTILITY gentle gentled GENTLEMAN gentlemen gently
tell TELLINGLY telltale told
niggle niggly niggling
yell yelled yelling
All of today’s new words have been added to the relevant subject reports in the LexiTopics report series.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-08
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3075 N A C E H I MToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3075 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and pangrams make their fifth appearance today. Unless the Bee editor changes his practice of never using a letter set more than five times, we won't see this one again.
No new words were added to the Bee lexicon, and none were taken away.
Two words in today’s solution set were OUT before they were allowed IN:
The botanical word canna was excluded from 32 Bees before being selected in 2022; it has been in 91 Bees since then, and shows up about twice a month.
The slang word for navel, innie, was disallowed 12 times before being accepted in 2020, and has been in 98 Bees since then. It’s one of a large number of slang and informal terms for parts of the human body, as indexed in the LexiTopics report on Human Anatomy.
These words are among the hundreds of OUT-IN words in the Spelling Bee lexicon, as recorded by LexiConnexxions HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
This letter set played a part in a tortured bit of Bee history: On June 3, 2025, the Spelling Bee that dropped at 3AM ET was based on this letter set with center letter C (CAEHIMN), but the official puzzle data (stats, two-letter list, and grid) on the official Hints page, and the Spelling Bee Buddy, were based on a different letter set, UAGILMN. Chaos and confusion ensued for several hours until the New York Times “resolved” the problem by removing the CAEHIMN puzzle and replacing it with the UAGILMN puzzle, so that the puzzle matched the information on the official Hints page. The solution created more problems than it solved; LexiConnexxions has the whole story HERE, in our collection of Spelling Bee Goofs and Gaffes.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee has two pairs of manly words: henchman/henchmen, and iceman/icemen. The Spelling Bee lexicon includes many words that include the letter sequences WOMAN, WOMEN, MAN, MEN, GIRL, and BOY. Being aware of these groups of related words can improve solving skills when the daily Bee contains the combinations of letters used in these words. LexiConnexxions has gathered all these words into one handy Solver’s List HERE.
WORD NOTES
A word in today's Bee, canna, serves to illustrate the dynamic nature of dictionaries — and of our language:
When LexiConnexxions indexed canna for the LexiTopics project a few years ago, the definition for canna in Merriam-Webster included only these senses (with example sentences, not included here):
(noun) any of a genus (Canna of the family Cannaceae) of tropical herbs with simple stems, large leaves, and a terminal raceme of irregular flowers(adj) containing or infused with cannabis
Since then, M-W has expanded the definition to include a second adjective sense:
relating to or involving the sale or use of cannabis —usually used in combination[examples: cannabusinesses, products for the cannacurious
On September 26, M-W had announced that they had added 1400 new words and definitions to their dictionary; perhaps this additional sense for canna was one of them.
LexiConnexxions has updated the LexiTopics reports on Botanicals and Intoxicants.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3075 N A C E H I MToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3075 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and pangrams make their fifth appearance today. Unless the Bee editor changes his practice of never using a letter set more than five times, we won't see this one again.
No new words were added to the Bee lexicon, and none were taken away.
Two words in today’s solution set were OUT before they were allowed IN:
The botanical word canna was excluded from 32 Bees before being selected in 2022; it has been in 91 Bees since then, and shows up about twice a month.
The slang word for navel, innie, was disallowed 12 times before being accepted in 2020, and has been in 98 Bees since then. It’s one of a large number of slang and informal terms for parts of the human body, as indexed in the LexiTopics report on Human Anatomy.
These words are among the hundreds of OUT-IN words in the Spelling Bee lexicon, as recorded by LexiConnexxions HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
This letter set played a part in a tortured bit of Bee history: On June 3, 2025, the Spelling Bee that dropped at 3AM ET was based on this letter set with center letter C (CAEHIMN), but the official puzzle data (stats, two-letter list, and grid) on the official Hints page, and the Spelling Bee Buddy, were based on a different letter set, UAGILMN. Chaos and confusion ensued for several hours until the New York Times “resolved” the problem by removing the CAEHIMN puzzle and replacing it with the UAGILMN puzzle, so that the puzzle matched the information on the official Hints page. The solution created more problems than it solved; LexiConnexxions has the whole story HERE, in our collection of Spelling Bee Goofs and Gaffes.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s Bee has two pairs of manly words: henchman/henchmen, and iceman/icemen. The Spelling Bee lexicon includes many words that include the letter sequences WOMAN, WOMEN, MAN, MEN, GIRL, and BOY. Being aware of these groups of related words can improve solving skills when the daily Bee contains the combinations of letters used in these words. LexiConnexxions has gathered all these words into one handy Solver’s List HERE.
WORD NOTES
A word in today's Bee, canna, serves to illustrate the dynamic nature of dictionaries — and of our language:
When LexiConnexxions indexed canna for the LexiTopics project a few years ago, the definition for canna in Merriam-Webster included only these senses (with example sentences, not included here):
(noun) any of a genus (Canna of the family Cannaceae) of tropical herbs with simple stems, large leaves, and a terminal raceme of irregular flowers(adj) containing or infused with cannabis
Since then, M-W has expanded the definition to include a second adjective sense:
relating to or involving the sale or use of cannabis —usually used in combination[examples: cannabusinesses, products for the cannacurious
On September 26, M-W had announced that they had added 1400 new words and definitions to their dictionary; perhaps this additional sense for canna was one of them.
LexiConnexxions has updated the LexiTopics reports on Botanicals and Intoxicants.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-07
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3074 A B D F L O RToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3074 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/07/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
UPDATED RESOURCE: LexiConnexxions has updated this guide to interpreting the information on the Spelling Bee Forum "Hints" page.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its one pangram FLOORBOARD make their fifth appearance today. Unless the Bee editor changes his practice of never using a letter set more than five times, we’ll never see this one again.
No new words were added to the Bee lexicon, and none were taken away.
One of today’s answers, dorado, was excluded from 26 Bees before it was accepted in 2022. Today is its 26th appearance. It’s one of nearly 300 such OUT-IN words in the Bee lexicon.
Two words that many players looked for today were used in earlier Bees, but then discontinued; lobar was used once (June 1, 2018, when the Bee was just a few weeks old) then never again; larboard was used 6x times (2018-2021) before being discontinued in 2024. These are among the 270 or so IN-OUT words in the Bee lexicon. Another word that did not appear today is alfa; it has been excluded from every Bee in which it was possible, except for the Bee of Feb 4, 2025. It’s one of only 22 OUT-IN-OUT words in the Bee lexicon. Was that lone inclusion a rare editorial error? Given that alfa had been excluded 63 times before being used that one time, and then was excluded the next time it was possible, it seems that the inclusion was, indeed, an error, but unless the editor makes a public statement (as he has sometimes done), it’s impossible to know for sure. (It’s interesting that sbsolver.com does not include alfa in its list of disallowed words for today.) LexiConnexxions compiles reports of Spelling Bee goofs and gaffes; some of them are quite funny. Read them HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
In the first four uses of this letter set, the center letters were D, L, F, and B, and the word counts were 42, 44, 29, and 37. With today’s center letter A, the word count is much higher (53); having a vowel in this position seems to make a difference.
Several of today’s words are among the 100 most-frequently used words in the Spelling Bee: baba, roar, ball, blab, and radar.
WORD NOTES
A few of the words in today’s Bee – barb, brad, and flora – can also be capitalized as personal names. LexiConnexxions has identified dozens of words like this in the Spelling Bee lexicon; see them all HERE. The Spelling Bee lexicon includes fifteen words that include board. Eight of them are pangrams; one (larboard) has been discontinued:
aboard BACKBOARD BILLBOARD board boardroom bodyboard cardboard CORKBOARD dartboard FLOORBOARD FOOTBOARD LAPBOARD larboard* MORTARBOARD OUTBOARD Within the WordPlay section of this site, LexiConnexxions provides a growing collection of Solvers' Lists, compilations of all Bee words that share certain letter combinations such as BOARD, ABLE, OUGH, and many others. See them the index for them all HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3074 A B D F L O RToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3074 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/07/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
UPDATED RESOURCE: LexiConnexxions has updated this guide to interpreting the information on the Spelling Bee Forum "Hints" page.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and its one pangram FLOORBOARD make their fifth appearance today. Unless the Bee editor changes his practice of never using a letter set more than five times, we’ll never see this one again.
No new words were added to the Bee lexicon, and none were taken away.
One of today’s answers, dorado, was excluded from 26 Bees before it was accepted in 2022. Today is its 26th appearance. It’s one of nearly 300 such OUT-IN words in the Bee lexicon.
Two words that many players looked for today were used in earlier Bees, but then discontinued; lobar was used once (June 1, 2018, when the Bee was just a few weeks old) then never again; larboard was used 6x times (2018-2021) before being discontinued in 2024. These are among the 270 or so IN-OUT words in the Bee lexicon. Another word that did not appear today is alfa; it has been excluded from every Bee in which it was possible, except for the Bee of Feb 4, 2025. It’s one of only 22 OUT-IN-OUT words in the Bee lexicon. Was that lone inclusion a rare editorial error? Given that alfa had been excluded 63 times before being used that one time, and then was excluded the next time it was possible, it seems that the inclusion was, indeed, an error, but unless the editor makes a public statement (as he has sometimes done), it’s impossible to know for sure. (It’s interesting that sbsolver.com does not include alfa in its list of disallowed words for today.) LexiConnexxions compiles reports of Spelling Bee goofs and gaffes; some of them are quite funny. Read them HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
In the first four uses of this letter set, the center letters were D, L, F, and B, and the word counts were 42, 44, 29, and 37. With today’s center letter A, the word count is much higher (53); having a vowel in this position seems to make a difference.
Several of today’s words are among the 100 most-frequently used words in the Spelling Bee: baba, roar, ball, blab, and radar.
WORD NOTES
A few of the words in today’s Bee – barb, brad, and flora – can also be capitalized as personal names. LexiConnexxions has identified dozens of words like this in the Spelling Bee lexicon; see them all HERE. The Spelling Bee lexicon includes fifteen words that include board. Eight of them are pangrams; one (larboard) has been discontinued:
aboard BACKBOARD BILLBOARD board boardroom bodyboard cardboard CORKBOARD dartboard FLOORBOARD FOOTBOARD LAPBOARD larboard* MORTARBOARD OUTBOARD Within the WordPlay section of this site, LexiConnexxions provides a growing collection of Solvers' Lists, compilations of all Bee words that share certain letter combinations such as BOARD, ABLE, OUGH, and many others. See them the index for them all HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-06
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3073 C D E H N O TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3073/Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram NOTCHED makes its second appearance today, having first been used on March 17, 2025.
No new words were introduced today, but one word, ecotone, was discontinued after having been used in 16 Bees.
Two other words that might have been possible today – hootch and conte – were discontinued earlier, hootch after seven uses, and conte after two uses.
According to Merriam-Webster, hootch is a variant spelling of hooch, meaning “a usually thatched hut.” The word hooch, which remains in the Bee lexicon and is in today’s solution set, also means “alcoholic liquor especially when inferior or illicitly made or obtained,” and it is perhaps in this sense that the Bee editor retains it. Impossible to know for sure.
The word conte means “a usually short tale of adventure,” from the French conter, meaning “to relate.”
LexiConnexxions retains discontinued words like these in our reports and records, designating them with asterisks. So hootch remains in the LexiTopics reports on Buildings, Architecture, & Construction (Building Types) and People: Individuals and Groups (Where We Live), and conte remains in the LexiTopics report Writing and Publishing.
DESIGN NOTES
Large Solution Set: Today’s Bee, with 62 words, is well above the 2025 average of 44.89 words per puzzle (2024: 42.75).
Another E+D Bee: After the unusually high number of E+D Bees in September, it’s a bit of a surprise to see two E+D Bees already in October, including today’s puzzle. Of the 1898 pangrams used in the Bee to date, 322 include E+D.
SOLVING TIPS
While E+D in the Bee is most often perceived as the suffix -ED, good solvers will also see it as the prefix DE-. Prefixes (CON-, DE-, EN-) and suffixes (-ED) play an important role in today’s Bee, with about half of today’s words being formed with at least one prefix or suffix, sometimes two (as in concocted). Good solvers will look for opportunities to affix both prefixes and suffixes to a root word. For example, the word code in today's Bee generates six answers: code, coded, decode, decoded, encode, and encoded.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3073 C D E H N O TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3073/Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram NOTCHED makes its second appearance today, having first been used on March 17, 2025.
No new words were introduced today, but one word, ecotone, was discontinued after having been used in 16 Bees.
Two other words that might have been possible today – hootch and conte – were discontinued earlier, hootch after seven uses, and conte after two uses.
According to Merriam-Webster, hootch is a variant spelling of hooch, meaning “a usually thatched hut.” The word hooch, which remains in the Bee lexicon and is in today’s solution set, also means “alcoholic liquor especially when inferior or illicitly made or obtained,” and it is perhaps in this sense that the Bee editor retains it. Impossible to know for sure.
The word conte means “a usually short tale of adventure,” from the French conter, meaning “to relate.”
LexiConnexxions retains discontinued words like these in our reports and records, designating them with asterisks. So hootch remains in the LexiTopics reports on Buildings, Architecture, & Construction (Building Types) and People: Individuals and Groups (Where We Live), and conte remains in the LexiTopics report Writing and Publishing.
DESIGN NOTES
Large Solution Set: Today’s Bee, with 62 words, is well above the 2025 average of 44.89 words per puzzle (2024: 42.75).
Another E+D Bee: After the unusually high number of E+D Bees in September, it’s a bit of a surprise to see two E+D Bees already in October, including today’s puzzle. Of the 1898 pangrams used in the Bee to date, 322 include E+D.
SOLVING TIPS
While E+D in the Bee is most often perceived as the suffix -ED, good solvers will also see it as the prefix DE-. Prefixes (CON-, DE-, EN-) and suffixes (-ED) play an important role in today’s Bee, with about half of today’s words being formed with at least one prefix or suffix, sometimes two (as in concocted). Good solvers will look for opportunities to affix both prefixes and suffixes to a root word. For example, the word code in today's Bee generates six answers: code, coded, decode, decoded, encode, and encoded.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-05
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3072 V A I L O R TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3072/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
Now available: LexiConnexxions summary report for September 2026. Read it HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram VIOLATOR makes its second appearance today. No new words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none removed.
DESIGN NOTES
With a low word count of 24, no E+D or I+N+G, no BINGO, no unusual letters, no really unusual words, and having brought no changes to the Bee lexicon, today’s Bee is about as vanilla as they come. A very straightforward little puzzle
The choice of V for center letter adds some interest to this puzzle, though, as V is rarely chosen for that role; it ranks 19th of the 26 letters in frequency of use as center letter. Learn more about center letters in Bee history HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
Certain letters and combinations of letters will prompt experienced players to look for certain kinds of words.
For example, the presence of O and R together could make possible “people who do things” nouns that end with -OR, such as aviator and violator in today’s Bee.
The presence of A and L together makes possible adjectives that end with -AL, and this Bee has several – larval, oval, rival, trivial, viral, vital. And that, in turn, prompts a hunt for nouns that end with -AL: arrival, avail, rival, vial. Together, these words that end with -AL form nearly a third of the solution set. Look for patterns like those.
Finding any word should prompt an immediate scan for related words, and this Bee has several pairs: larva and larval, trivia and trivial, viol and viola.
Finally, the vowels A, I, and O often appear at the ends of words that have been adopted into English from other languages, and this Bee has several of these: larva, lava, ravioli, trivia, villa, viola, and voila.
WORD NOTES
When a word like voila shows up in the Bee, solvers sometimes wonder why words that have accent marks or diacritics can be used in the Bee.
Merriam-Webster gives the French spelling voilà as its main entry, and adds variants: or voila, indicating that in American English, either spelling is correct.
Merriam-Webster also advises that "In English, words having diacritics are borrowings from other languages, and the marks are not a natural part of the English language itself. However, lexicographers have adopted diacritics to indicate English pronunciation and, of course, to show word etymologies. Although the English borrowings enter the language with their markings, they are often dropped from many spellings through Anglicization.”
And that is why it is acceptable for the Spelling Bee to include these words without their accents or special characters, because in American English (the language on which the Spelling Bee is based), those words are not always spelled the same as they are in their languages of origin. And of course, the design of the puzzle does not permit for the entry of any characters other than unaccented A-Z.
LexiConnexxions has gathered into a single list all the Spelling Bee words that in their languages of origin are spelled with diacritics or special characters. Review the whole list HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3072 V A I L O R TToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3072/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
Now available: LexiConnexxions summary report for September 2026. Read it HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram VIOLATOR makes its second appearance today. No new words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none removed.
DESIGN NOTES
With a low word count of 24, no E+D or I+N+G, no BINGO, no unusual letters, no really unusual words, and having brought no changes to the Bee lexicon, today’s Bee is about as vanilla as they come. A very straightforward little puzzle
The choice of V for center letter adds some interest to this puzzle, though, as V is rarely chosen for that role; it ranks 19th of the 26 letters in frequency of use as center letter. Learn more about center letters in Bee history HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
Certain letters and combinations of letters will prompt experienced players to look for certain kinds of words.
For example, the presence of O and R together could make possible “people who do things” nouns that end with -OR, such as aviator and violator in today’s Bee.
The presence of A and L together makes possible adjectives that end with -AL, and this Bee has several – larval, oval, rival, trivial, viral, vital. And that, in turn, prompts a hunt for nouns that end with -AL: arrival, avail, rival, vial. Together, these words that end with -AL form nearly a third of the solution set. Look for patterns like those.
Finding any word should prompt an immediate scan for related words, and this Bee has several pairs: larva and larval, trivia and trivial, viol and viola.
Finally, the vowels A, I, and O often appear at the ends of words that have been adopted into English from other languages, and this Bee has several of these: larva, lava, ravioli, trivia, villa, viola, and voila.
WORD NOTES
When a word like voila shows up in the Bee, solvers sometimes wonder why words that have accent marks or diacritics can be used in the Bee.
Merriam-Webster gives the French spelling voilà as its main entry, and adds variants: or voila, indicating that in American English, either spelling is correct.
Merriam-Webster also advises that "In English, words having diacritics are borrowings from other languages, and the marks are not a natural part of the English language itself. However, lexicographers have adopted diacritics to indicate English pronunciation and, of course, to show word etymologies. Although the English borrowings enter the language with their markings, they are often dropped from many spellings through Anglicization.”
And that is why it is acceptable for the Spelling Bee to include these words without their accents or special characters, because in American English (the language on which the Spelling Bee is based), those words are not always spelled the same as they are in their languages of origin. And of course, the design of the puzzle does not permit for the entry of any characters other than unaccented A-Z.
LexiConnexxions has gathered into a single list all the Spelling Bee words that in their languages of origin are spelled with diacritics or special characters. Review the whole list HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-04
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3071 G H I N O P W Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3071/Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/04/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
Now available: LexiConnexxions summary report for September 2026. Read it HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set with its two pangrams WHOOPING and WHOPPING makes its third appearance today.
No new words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none discontinued.
Three words in today’s solution set had been previously disallowed before finally being selected for the Bee:
gigging disallowed 8x, accepted 2022gonging disallowed 10x, accepted 2022whinging disallowed 3x, accepted 2023
Chiefly British? The addition to the Bee lexicon of whinging in 2023 (and, in 2024, its root whinge and the variant of the participle whingeing) generated some conversation amongst Bee solvers. Conventional "Hive" wisdom has long been confident that “chiefly British” words are not included in the Spelling Bee. However, the Bee editor has said only that the Bee will not include “clear variants or British variants on American English words,” a statement that LexiConnexxions interprets to refer only to variant spellings (e.g., colour and color). And indeed, the Spelling Bee lexicon does include a handful of words from British English, as may be seen in the LexiConnexxions report “Fancy That! British Words in the Spelling Bee” in the WordPlay section of this site.
DESIGN NOTES
Bees that include I+N+G delight players who enjoy a relatively easy solving experience, and annoy others who find this sort of puzzle to be repetitive and not very interesting. These puzzles will always have some words that end with -ING, but when the center letter is I, N, or G, then the proportion of “-ING” words is likely to be quite high. That’s the case with today’s Bee, with center letter G: 40 of 51 words (78.43%) in today’s solution set end with the -ING suffix. Read more about I+N+G and E+D Bees HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
While an I+N+G Bee can be fun to solve, it also presents some unique challenges, as the use of the -ING suffix requires a solver to think “outside” the Bee, in three important ways. In today's Bee, 40 of 51 words (78.43%) in the solution set ended with the -ING suffix. But only five of those 40 words were formed by simply appending “ING” to a root verb that was present in the Bee, without alteration:
gong / gonging gown / gowning ping / pinging pogo / pogoing wing / winging The other 35 ING words – all essential to solving this Bee – were formed by thinking “outside” the Bee. How? First, when the letter set includes I+N+G but no letter E, the solution set will very likely include the participles of root verbs that are spelling with an E (e.g., in this example, hone, which cannot be in this Bee, and honing, which is in this Bee). That is, a player must think abstractly of root verbs that end with an E in order to form participles from which the E is dropped before adding -ING. Thus, a player must imagine words that can’t be found in that particular Bee (no E!) in order to form words that must be found in order to solve the Bee. Today's Bee icludes twelve words of this type:
hinging honing hoping opining owing phoning pining piping whinging whining wining wiping
Second, the solution set may include words formed by adding the -ING suffix to root verbs that are only two or three letters long, none of which can appear in a puzzle that requires all words to be at least four letters long (e.g., in this example, hop and hopping). That is, solvers must remember to think of shorter verbs that can’t be in the Bee in order to form words that must be found in order to solve the Bee. Today's Bee includes seventeen words of this type:
gigging ginning going hogging hopping inning [staying in an inn] nipping ongoing owing owning pigging pinning popping wigging winning wooing wowing
(There is some overlap between these groups, of course, such as with owing, whose root owe is just three letters long and ends with E.) Third, the solution set may include present participles of root verbs that are not in the solution set at all, because those root words do not include the mandated center letter. (Some Bee solvers refer to these as "donut" words because they use letters around the circle of the puzzle.) That is, solvers must remember to think of words without the center letter that can't be in the Bee in order to form words that must be found in order to solve the Bee. Today's Bee included seven words of this type: present participles of root verbs that did not include the center letter G:
hooping pinioning pooping whipping whooping whopping winnowing
And the remaining six words are nouns, adjective, adverbs, or verbs for which the participle form was not used:
goon goop high nigh noggin pong
WORD NOTES
One of today’s words – pogo – has an interesting history. Merriam-Webster defines it only as a verb: “to dance by hopping up and down” and gives as an example “punk rockers pogoing madly.” The word derives from pogo stick, defined by M-W as “a pole with a strong spring at the bottom and two footrests on which a person stands and moves along with a series of jumps.” Though it’s a generic word now, Pogo was once the proper trademark name for this toy that was introduced in the 1920s and quickly became popular in Europe and the United States. The name “Pogo” was probably contrived from the names of its German inventors, Max Pohlig and Ernst Gottschall. After some decline in popularity, pogo sticks have seen some resurgence, and are used nowadays not only for casual play but in extreme sporting events.
The words pogo, pogoed, and pogoing are in the Spelling Bee lexicon, and included in the LexiTopics report on Dance and in the WordPlay reports on Eponyms and Brand Names.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3071 G H I N O P W Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3071/Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/04/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
Now available: LexiConnexxions summary report for September 2026. Read it HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set with its two pangrams WHOOPING and WHOPPING makes its third appearance today.
No new words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and none discontinued.
Three words in today’s solution set had been previously disallowed before finally being selected for the Bee:
gigging disallowed 8x, accepted 2022gonging disallowed 10x, accepted 2022whinging disallowed 3x, accepted 2023
Chiefly British? The addition to the Bee lexicon of whinging in 2023 (and, in 2024, its root whinge and the variant of the participle whingeing) generated some conversation amongst Bee solvers. Conventional "Hive" wisdom has long been confident that “chiefly British” words are not included in the Spelling Bee. However, the Bee editor has said only that the Bee will not include “clear variants or British variants on American English words,” a statement that LexiConnexxions interprets to refer only to variant spellings (e.g., colour and color). And indeed, the Spelling Bee lexicon does include a handful of words from British English, as may be seen in the LexiConnexxions report “Fancy That! British Words in the Spelling Bee” in the WordPlay section of this site.
DESIGN NOTES
Bees that include I+N+G delight players who enjoy a relatively easy solving experience, and annoy others who find this sort of puzzle to be repetitive and not very interesting. These puzzles will always have some words that end with -ING, but when the center letter is I, N, or G, then the proportion of “-ING” words is likely to be quite high. That’s the case with today’s Bee, with center letter G: 40 of 51 words (78.43%) in today’s solution set end with the -ING suffix. Read more about I+N+G and E+D Bees HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
While an I+N+G Bee can be fun to solve, it also presents some unique challenges, as the use of the -ING suffix requires a solver to think “outside” the Bee, in three important ways. In today's Bee, 40 of 51 words (78.43%) in the solution set ended with the -ING suffix. But only five of those 40 words were formed by simply appending “ING” to a root verb that was present in the Bee, without alteration:
gong / gonging gown / gowning ping / pinging pogo / pogoing wing / winging The other 35 ING words – all essential to solving this Bee – were formed by thinking “outside” the Bee. How? First, when the letter set includes I+N+G but no letter E, the solution set will very likely include the participles of root verbs that are spelling with an E (e.g., in this example, hone, which cannot be in this Bee, and honing, which is in this Bee). That is, a player must think abstractly of root verbs that end with an E in order to form participles from which the E is dropped before adding -ING. Thus, a player must imagine words that can’t be found in that particular Bee (no E!) in order to form words that must be found in order to solve the Bee. Today's Bee icludes twelve words of this type:
hinging honing hoping opining owing phoning pining piping whinging whining wining wiping
Second, the solution set may include words formed by adding the -ING suffix to root verbs that are only two or three letters long, none of which can appear in a puzzle that requires all words to be at least four letters long (e.g., in this example, hop and hopping). That is, solvers must remember to think of shorter verbs that can’t be in the Bee in order to form words that must be found in order to solve the Bee. Today's Bee includes seventeen words of this type:
gigging ginning going hogging hopping inning [staying in an inn] nipping ongoing owing owning pigging pinning popping wigging winning wooing wowing
(There is some overlap between these groups, of course, such as with owing, whose root owe is just three letters long and ends with E.) Third, the solution set may include present participles of root verbs that are not in the solution set at all, because those root words do not include the mandated center letter. (Some Bee solvers refer to these as "donut" words because they use letters around the circle of the puzzle.) That is, solvers must remember to think of words without the center letter that can't be in the Bee in order to form words that must be found in order to solve the Bee. Today's Bee included seven words of this type: present participles of root verbs that did not include the center letter G:
hooping pinioning pooping whipping whooping whopping winnowing
And the remaining six words are nouns, adjective, adverbs, or verbs for which the participle form was not used:
goon goop high nigh noggin pong
WORD NOTES
One of today’s words – pogo – has an interesting history. Merriam-Webster defines it only as a verb: “to dance by hopping up and down” and gives as an example “punk rockers pogoing madly.” The word derives from pogo stick, defined by M-W as “a pole with a strong spring at the bottom and two footrests on which a person stands and moves along with a series of jumps.” Though it’s a generic word now, Pogo was once the proper trademark name for this toy that was introduced in the 1920s and quickly became popular in Europe and the United States. The name “Pogo” was probably contrived from the names of its German inventors, Max Pohlig and Ernst Gottschall. After some decline in popularity, pogo sticks have seen some resurgence, and are used nowadays not only for casual play but in extreme sporting events.
The words pogo, pogoed, and pogoing are in the Spelling Bee lexicon, and included in the LexiTopics report on Dance and in the WordPlay reports on Eponyms and Brand Names.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-03
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3070 I A B C H L N Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3070/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
Now available: LexiConnexxions summary report for September. Read it HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set – and the two pangrams that were selected from among several possible pangrams, BACCHANALIA and BACCHANALIAN – make their third appearance today.
No new words have been added to the Bee lexicon, but one word – bacchic – has been discontinued. It had been selected for the first use of this letter set (center letter A), then it was not possible with the second use (center letter L), and then it was disallowed today (center letter I). See the Word Notes below for contextual information that might explain its removal from the active Bee lexicon. Bacchic joins the midden of words that have been discontinued from the Bee lexicon, as reported HERE.
Today’s solution set includes a word, iliac, that had been disallowed five times (all in 2018) before being accepted. It now appears in the Bee fairly frequently, due to its being composed of common letters.
LexiConnexxions tracks these changes daily and prepares monthly and annual summaries, as well as separate reports for each of the eight IN-OUT patterns. An overview of these reports is HERE.
WORD NOTES
Why was bacchic discontinued? We can’t know for sure why the Bee editor includes or excludes any individual word from the puzzle, unless he makes a public statement about it (as happens occasionally, though very rarely). In the case of bacchic, its treatment by various Bee-ish dictionaries is not consistent, especially as to capitalization:
M-W abridgedBacchicvariants or less commonly bacchic: of, relating to, or suggestive of Bacchus or the Bacchanalia: bacchanalian
M-W unabridgedbacchic: bacchanalian
CollinsBacchicin American English1. of, pertaining to, or honoring Bacchus2. (lc) [lower case] riotously or jovially intoxicated; drunken
Bacchicin British English1. of or relating to Bacchus2. (often not capital) riotously drunk
NOADBacchic1 relating to Bacchus or the worship of Bacchus1.1 drunken and debauched: (in the evening, this bar becomes positively Bacchic)
OEDBacchic1. Of or relating to Bacchus or his worship.2. Designating rowdy, intoxicated, or boisterously jovial…
The word bacchic is probably just too rare for the Spelling Bee, and perhaps the adjective bacchanalian is in more common use.
Ye Gods! The pangrams BACCHANALIA and BACCHANALIAN (and the disallowed bacchic) all derive from Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and merry-making. Those words are among the many eponyms in the Bee lexicon – words derived from the names of people, both real and fictional, including a panoply of Greek and Roman gods. The whole list is HERE.
What’s being talked about in the forum? Chilblains. The familiar word chilblain – a painful swelling of the fingers caused by cold – was not selected today, nor was it selected in either of the two previous uses of this letter set. Its absence today is causing a foofaraw in the forum. Some commenters there have suggested that the only correct form is the plural chilblains, but the Bee-ish dictionaries agree that the singular form is fine, and in fact, they all give the singular form as the primary entry. A few add “usually plural,” but afflictions of this type – where a person might have more than one of the actual lesions – are often referred to in the plural (pimples, blisters), while the singular form is also a valid word on its own. Here's what the Bee-ish dictionaries show:
M-W abridgedchilblain: an inflammatory swelling or sore caused by exposure (as of the feet or hands) to cold
M-W unabridgedchilblaininflected form(s): plural -sa redness and swelling of toes, fingers, nose, or ears or sometimes cheeks in cold weather accompanied by itching and burning and sometimes followed by cracking of skin and ulceration and believed to be based on a constitutional instability of the local circulation
CollinschilblainWord forms: chilblainscountable noun [usu pl]Chilblains are painful, red swellings which people sometimes get on their fingers or toes in cold weather.
chilblainin American Englisha painful swelling or sore caused by exposure to cold, esp. on the fingers, toes, or ears
chilblainin American English(usually chilblains) Pathologyan inflammation of the hands and feet caused by exposure to cold and moisture
chilblainin British Englishpathology (usually plural)an inflammation of the fingers, toes, or ears, caused by prolonged exposure to moisture and cold.
NOADchilblaina painful, itching swelling on the skin, typically on a hand or foot, caused by poor circulation in the skin when exposed to cold.
OEDchilblainAn inflammatory swelling produced by exposure to cold, affecting the hands and feet, accompanied with heat and itching, and in severe cases leading to ulceration.(verb) transitive. To affect with chilblains. (In modern dictionaries.)
Now available: LexiConnexxions summary report for September. Read it HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set – and the two pangrams that were selected from among several possible pangrams, BACCHANALIA and BACCHANALIAN – make their third appearance today.
No new words have been added to the Bee lexicon, but one word – bacchic – has been discontinued. It had been selected for the first use of this letter set (center letter A), then it was not possible with the second use (center letter L), and then it was disallowed today (center letter I). See the Word Notes below for contextual information that might explain its removal from the active Bee lexicon. Bacchic joins the midden of words that have been discontinued from the Bee lexicon, as reported HERE.
Today’s solution set includes a word, iliac, that had been disallowed five times (all in 2018) before being accepted. It now appears in the Bee fairly frequently, due to its being composed of common letters.
LexiConnexxions tracks these changes daily and prepares monthly and annual summaries, as well as separate reports for each of the eight IN-OUT patterns. An overview of these reports is HERE.
WORD NOTES
Why was bacchic discontinued? We can’t know for sure why the Bee editor includes or excludes any individual word from the puzzle, unless he makes a public statement about it (as happens occasionally, though very rarely). In the case of bacchic, its treatment by various Bee-ish dictionaries is not consistent, especially as to capitalization:
M-W abridgedBacchicvariants or less commonly bacchic: of, relating to, or suggestive of Bacchus or the Bacchanalia: bacchanalian
M-W unabridgedbacchic: bacchanalian
CollinsBacchicin American English1. of, pertaining to, or honoring Bacchus2. (lc) [lower case] riotously or jovially intoxicated; drunken
Bacchicin British English1. of or relating to Bacchus2. (often not capital) riotously drunk
NOADBacchic1 relating to Bacchus or the worship of Bacchus1.1 drunken and debauched: (in the evening, this bar becomes positively Bacchic)
OEDBacchic1. Of or relating to Bacchus or his worship.2. Designating rowdy, intoxicated, or boisterously jovial…
The word bacchic is probably just too rare for the Spelling Bee, and perhaps the adjective bacchanalian is in more common use.
Ye Gods! The pangrams BACCHANALIA and BACCHANALIAN (and the disallowed bacchic) all derive from Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and merry-making. Those words are among the many eponyms in the Bee lexicon – words derived from the names of people, both real and fictional, including a panoply of Greek and Roman gods. The whole list is HERE.
What’s being talked about in the forum? Chilblains. The familiar word chilblain – a painful swelling of the fingers caused by cold – was not selected today, nor was it selected in either of the two previous uses of this letter set. Its absence today is causing a foofaraw in the forum. Some commenters there have suggested that the only correct form is the plural chilblains, but the Bee-ish dictionaries agree that the singular form is fine, and in fact, they all give the singular form as the primary entry. A few add “usually plural,” but afflictions of this type – where a person might have more than one of the actual lesions – are often referred to in the plural (pimples, blisters), while the singular form is also a valid word on its own. Here's what the Bee-ish dictionaries show:
M-W abridgedchilblain: an inflammatory swelling or sore caused by exposure (as of the feet or hands) to cold
M-W unabridgedchilblaininflected form(s): plural -sa redness and swelling of toes, fingers, nose, or ears or sometimes cheeks in cold weather accompanied by itching and burning and sometimes followed by cracking of skin and ulceration and believed to be based on a constitutional instability of the local circulation
CollinschilblainWord forms: chilblainscountable noun [usu pl]Chilblains are painful, red swellings which people sometimes get on their fingers or toes in cold weather.
chilblainin American Englisha painful swelling or sore caused by exposure to cold, esp. on the fingers, toes, or ears
chilblainin American English(usually chilblains) Pathologyan inflammation of the hands and feet caused by exposure to cold and moisture
chilblainin British Englishpathology (usually plural)an inflammation of the fingers, toes, or ears, caused by prolonged exposure to moisture and cold.
NOADchilblaina painful, itching swelling on the skin, typically on a hand or foot, caused by poor circulation in the skin when exposed to cold.
OEDchilblainAn inflammatory swelling produced by exposure to cold, affecting the hands and feet, accompanied with heat and itching, and in severe cases leading to ulceration.(verb) transitive. To affect with chilblains. (In modern dictionaries.)
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-02
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3069 T A I L M N P Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3069/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
Just published: LexiConnexxions summary report for September. Read it HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set with the pangram IMPLANT makes its fourth appearance today. As no letter set has ever been used more than five times, we can expect to see this one just once more before it is retired.
IMPLANT is a perfect pangram; that is, it uses each of the seven letters just once and is, therefore, seven letters long. Of the 1898 pangrams used in the Spelling Bee to date, only 462 (24.34%) are perfect pangrams.
No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, nor any discontinued.
Four words in today’s solution set were disallowed many times before finally being selected for the Bee:
lantana disallowed 20xmantilla disallowed 5xtallit disallowed 42xtipi disallowed 55x
Many Bee solvers look for attaint and are surprised that it is not included. It was used in the Bee 33 times before being discontinued in 2022.
Hidden in today’s letter set is the word tain, which has the distinction of having one of the most convoluted “in and out” histories of all the words in the Bee lexicon. Tain was disallowed for 17 Bees, then accepted for one, then excluded from 14, then accepted for two, and finally excluded forever. It is one of only two OUT-IN-OUT-IN-OUT word in the Bee lexicon. (The other is belate.) Neither Merriam-Webster or NOAD includes tain; Collins defines it as “a thin tin plate” or “tin foil for the backs of mirrors.” The Online Etymological Dictionary’s entry offers more: "thin tin plate for mirrors, etc.," 1858, from French tain "tinfoil" (17c.), an alteration of étain "tin," from Latin stagnum, stannum "alloy of silver and lead," in Late Latin "tin"
The IN-OUT pattern for tain looks like this: TAIN / O-I-O-I-O 17 / 1 / 14 / 2 / x
The list of these interesting words in the Bee lexicon – for which LexiConnexxions coined the term “flip-flop” words – those having four or more INS or OUTs – is very short; they are all listed HERE. WORD NOTES
Today’s Bee has two bird names – pipit and pintail. They are among the ninety bird names or types in the Bee lexicon, as recorded in the LexiTopic report on Animals. Just for fun, LexiConnexxions reviewed state bird lists to see how many state birds might be matched up to the bird names in the Spelling Bee lexicon. By bending a few definitions, we came up with those shown in Wordplay: State Birds in the Spelling Bee, which perches HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3069 T A I L M N P Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3069/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
Just published: LexiConnexxions summary report for September. Read it HERE.
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set with the pangram IMPLANT makes its fourth appearance today. As no letter set has ever been used more than five times, we can expect to see this one just once more before it is retired.
IMPLANT is a perfect pangram; that is, it uses each of the seven letters just once and is, therefore, seven letters long. Of the 1898 pangrams used in the Spelling Bee to date, only 462 (24.34%) are perfect pangrams.
No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, nor any discontinued.
Four words in today’s solution set were disallowed many times before finally being selected for the Bee:
lantana disallowed 20xmantilla disallowed 5xtallit disallowed 42xtipi disallowed 55x
Many Bee solvers look for attaint and are surprised that it is not included. It was used in the Bee 33 times before being discontinued in 2022.
Hidden in today’s letter set is the word tain, which has the distinction of having one of the most convoluted “in and out” histories of all the words in the Bee lexicon. Tain was disallowed for 17 Bees, then accepted for one, then excluded from 14, then accepted for two, and finally excluded forever. It is one of only two OUT-IN-OUT-IN-OUT word in the Bee lexicon. (The other is belate.) Neither Merriam-Webster or NOAD includes tain; Collins defines it as “a thin tin plate” or “tin foil for the backs of mirrors.” The Online Etymological Dictionary’s entry offers more: "thin tin plate for mirrors, etc.," 1858, from French tain "tinfoil" (17c.), an alteration of étain "tin," from Latin stagnum, stannum "alloy of silver and lead," in Late Latin "tin"
The IN-OUT pattern for tain looks like this: TAIN / O-I-O-I-O 17 / 1 / 14 / 2 / x
The list of these interesting words in the Bee lexicon – for which LexiConnexxions coined the term “flip-flop” words – those having four or more INS or OUTs – is very short; they are all listed HERE. WORD NOTES
Today’s Bee has two bird names – pipit and pintail. They are among the ninety bird names or types in the Bee lexicon, as recorded in the LexiTopic report on Animals. Just for fun, LexiConnexxions reviewed state bird lists to see how many state birds might be matched up to the bird names in the Spelling Bee lexicon. By bending a few definitions, we came up with those shown in Wordplay: State Birds in the Spelling Bee, which perches HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-10-01
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3068 H D E M N O YToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3068 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html LexiConnexxions' September Summary Report is now available HERE. PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram HONEYMOONED makes its third appearance today. No new words were added to the Bee lexicon, and none was discontinued.
DESIGN NOTES
A very rare Bee with only two initial letters: In today’s Bee, all the words in the solution set begin with either H or Y, and in fact 22 of the 23 words begin with H. Only one other puzzle in Spelling Bee history has had two starting letters, that of 2024-11-19, when the starting letters also happened to be H and Y. LexiConnexxions records all Bees with four or fewer starting letters; see the full report HERE. No words begin with a vowel: Today's Bee is only the 84th (of 3068 Bees to date) in which none of the words begins with a vowel. All the words except one begin with H; in the word that begins with Y, the Y functions as a consonant.
Center letter makes a difference: It’s always interesting to see how the choice of center letter affects the size and composition of the solution set:2026-10-01: center letter H, 23 words2025-10-21: center letter Y, 32 words2024-07-22: center letter N, 47 words
Another E+D Bee: As noted in recent Bee Buzz reports, the Bee editor seems to be on a roll with using letter sets that include E+D. Today’s is the fourth E+D Bee in seven days.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s pangram was a tough one for many solvers, who looked for a word ending in -Y, or some pangram with the NYM root. Sometimes a helpful approach is to look for compound words; it’s relatively easy to make short words, and then see how they can be combined.
LexiConnexxions provides a selection of “solvers’ lists” – compilations of Bee words that share certain groups of letters, such as NYM, ABLE, WOOD, and the like. The “solvers’ lists” are in the WordPlay section of this site.
WORD NOTES
What about hoyden? Perhaps it is relatively rare, and not included for that reason? Certainly it should not be excluded for its meaning, which Meriam-Webster gives as “a girl or woman of saucy, boisterous, or carefree behavior.” The Bee lexicon includes a large number of words referring to girls and women, including women engaged in sex work. LexiConnexxions has identified all the Bee words related to gender; they are in the LexiTopic “People: Individuals and Groups.”
What’s in a NYM? Today’s Bee includes both homonym and homonymy. It’s interesting to see all the “nym” words in the Bee lexicon. Two (shown in ALL CAPS below) have been used as pangrams; two others (marked with asterisks) have been discontinued from the lexicon.
ACRONYMallonym* anonym* ANONYMITYantonymantonymydemonym homonymhomonymymetonymmetonymymononymtoponymtoponymy
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3068 H D E M N O YToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3068 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html LexiConnexxions' September Summary Report is now available HERE. PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram HONEYMOONED makes its third appearance today. No new words were added to the Bee lexicon, and none was discontinued.
DESIGN NOTES
A very rare Bee with only two initial letters: In today’s Bee, all the words in the solution set begin with either H or Y, and in fact 22 of the 23 words begin with H. Only one other puzzle in Spelling Bee history has had two starting letters, that of 2024-11-19, when the starting letters also happened to be H and Y. LexiConnexxions records all Bees with four or fewer starting letters; see the full report HERE. No words begin with a vowel: Today's Bee is only the 84th (of 3068 Bees to date) in which none of the words begins with a vowel. All the words except one begin with H; in the word that begins with Y, the Y functions as a consonant.
Center letter makes a difference: It’s always interesting to see how the choice of center letter affects the size and composition of the solution set:2026-10-01: center letter H, 23 words2025-10-21: center letter Y, 32 words2024-07-22: center letter N, 47 words
Another E+D Bee: As noted in recent Bee Buzz reports, the Bee editor seems to be on a roll with using letter sets that include E+D. Today’s is the fourth E+D Bee in seven days.
SOLVING TIPS
Today’s pangram was a tough one for many solvers, who looked for a word ending in -Y, or some pangram with the NYM root. Sometimes a helpful approach is to look for compound words; it’s relatively easy to make short words, and then see how they can be combined.
LexiConnexxions provides a selection of “solvers’ lists” – compilations of Bee words that share certain groups of letters, such as NYM, ABLE, WOOD, and the like. The “solvers’ lists” are in the WordPlay section of this site.
WORD NOTES
What about hoyden? Perhaps it is relatively rare, and not included for that reason? Certainly it should not be excluded for its meaning, which Meriam-Webster gives as “a girl or woman of saucy, boisterous, or carefree behavior.” The Bee lexicon includes a large number of words referring to girls and women, including women engaged in sex work. LexiConnexxions has identified all the Bee words related to gender; they are in the LexiTopic “People: Individuals and Groups.”
What’s in a NYM? Today’s Bee includes both homonym and homonymy. It’s interesting to see all the “nym” words in the Bee lexicon. Two (shown in ALL CAPS below) have been used as pangrams; two others (marked with asterisks) have been discontinued from the lexicon.
ACRONYMallonym* anonym* ANONYMITYantonymantonymydemonym homonymhomonymymetonymmetonymymononymtoponymtoponymy
BEE BUZZ 2026-09-30
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3067 P A C D E K N Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3067 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangrams KNEECAPPED and PANCAKED make their second appearance in the Spelling Bee.
The Bee lexicon gained a new word today: pandan. It had been disallowed from 20 Bees before being accepted today. Of the 280 or so words that were disallowed before being accepted, only 15 words had been disallowed more often than pandan. See the whole list of OUT-IN words HERE.
Of the 29 words added to the Bee lexicon in September, 4 are OUT-IN words like pandan; that’s a relatively high proportion, and aligns with the new trend noted by LexiConnexxions of the use of pangrams that had been previously disallowed.
DESIGN NOTES
When this letter set made its debut in 2025, the center letter was K, and the solution set comprised 35 words. With the more common letter P in the center, today’s Bee has 62 words, an apt example of the difference the center letter can make to the texture and size of the Bee, even when a letter set is repeated. More than half of the words in today’s solution set (35 of the 62) begin with letter P.
Today’s Bee is the ninth puzzle in September to include E+D, bringing the rate to 30% for the month, well above the average rates for 2025 (16.71%) and for Jan–Aug 2026 (17.69%). Read more about E+D and I+N+G Bees HERE.
WORD NOTES
Today’s new word pandan is an interesting addition to the Bee lexicon. Merriam-Webster’s definition is brief: “a plant of the family Pandanaceae, especially: textile screw pine.” The linked definition for “textile screw pine” says only “a Polynesian screw pine (Pandanus tectorius), called also lauhala.” While the Bee lexicon does include flora and fauna from around the world, and while each Bee puzzle includes a careful blend of common and rare words, pandan seems a little obscure for the Bee. A little research, though, reveals that pandan is as much a culinary word as a botanical term, and perhaps it is in that sense that the Bee editor considered it a good Bee word. According to The Spruce Eats, “In Southeast Asia, pandan leaves impart a unique taste and aroma to desserts, drinks, and savory dishes. Available fresh, frozen, and dried, pandan leaves can also wrap savory foods like chicken or sticky rice, adding both aromatic notes and visual appeal. The paste, extract, and powder not only contribute flavor but also tint ingredients with a green hue.” LexiConnexxions has, accordingly, added entries for pandan to the LexiTopics reports on Botanicals and Food and Drink. For the record, here are the entries for pandan some Bee-ish dictionaries
M-W abridged:a plant of the family Pandanaceae, especially: textile screw pine: a Polynesian screw pine (Pandanus tectorius), called also lauhala.
M-W unabridged: same
Collins:Has only an entry for pandanaceous:in British Englishadjective of, relating to, or belonging to the Pandanaceae, an Old World tropical family of monocotyledonous plants including the screw pines
NOAD:1 a tropical tree or shrub with a twisted and branched stem, spiral tufts of long, narrow spiny leaves, and fibrous edible fruit; a pa4us or screw pine. Genus Pandanus, family Pandanaceae1.1 the fruit or leaves of the pandan as a food or flavoring.1.2 fiber from the leaves of the pandan, often woven into a material for roofing, mats, etc.
It's interesting how differently these three dictionaries treat this word.
Why is it called "screw pine"? Britannica says "The genus is characterized by numerous long, narrow, parallel-veined, palmlike leaves with spiny margins and midribs that are produced in tufts at the branch tips in three or four close twisted ranks around the stem, forming the screwlike helices of leaves that give the common name screw pine to these plants."
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3067 P A C D E K N Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3067 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangrams KNEECAPPED and PANCAKED make their second appearance in the Spelling Bee.
The Bee lexicon gained a new word today: pandan. It had been disallowed from 20 Bees before being accepted today. Of the 280 or so words that were disallowed before being accepted, only 15 words had been disallowed more often than pandan. See the whole list of OUT-IN words HERE.
Of the 29 words added to the Bee lexicon in September, 4 are OUT-IN words like pandan; that’s a relatively high proportion, and aligns with the new trend noted by LexiConnexxions of the use of pangrams that had been previously disallowed.
DESIGN NOTES
When this letter set made its debut in 2025, the center letter was K, and the solution set comprised 35 words. With the more common letter P in the center, today’s Bee has 62 words, an apt example of the difference the center letter can make to the texture and size of the Bee, even when a letter set is repeated. More than half of the words in today’s solution set (35 of the 62) begin with letter P.
Today’s Bee is the ninth puzzle in September to include E+D, bringing the rate to 30% for the month, well above the average rates for 2025 (16.71%) and for Jan–Aug 2026 (17.69%). Read more about E+D and I+N+G Bees HERE.
WORD NOTES
Today’s new word pandan is an interesting addition to the Bee lexicon. Merriam-Webster’s definition is brief: “a plant of the family Pandanaceae, especially: textile screw pine.” The linked definition for “textile screw pine” says only “a Polynesian screw pine (Pandanus tectorius), called also lauhala.” While the Bee lexicon does include flora and fauna from around the world, and while each Bee puzzle includes a careful blend of common and rare words, pandan seems a little obscure for the Bee. A little research, though, reveals that pandan is as much a culinary word as a botanical term, and perhaps it is in that sense that the Bee editor considered it a good Bee word. According to The Spruce Eats, “In Southeast Asia, pandan leaves impart a unique taste and aroma to desserts, drinks, and savory dishes. Available fresh, frozen, and dried, pandan leaves can also wrap savory foods like chicken or sticky rice, adding both aromatic notes and visual appeal. The paste, extract, and powder not only contribute flavor but also tint ingredients with a green hue.” LexiConnexxions has, accordingly, added entries for pandan to the LexiTopics reports on Botanicals and Food and Drink. For the record, here are the entries for pandan some Bee-ish dictionaries
M-W abridged:a plant of the family Pandanaceae, especially: textile screw pine: a Polynesian screw pine (Pandanus tectorius), called also lauhala.
M-W unabridged: same
Collins:Has only an entry for pandanaceous:in British Englishadjective of, relating to, or belonging to the Pandanaceae, an Old World tropical family of monocotyledonous plants including the screw pines
NOAD:1 a tropical tree or shrub with a twisted and branched stem, spiral tufts of long, narrow spiny leaves, and fibrous edible fruit; a pa4us or screw pine. Genus Pandanus, family Pandanaceae1.1 the fruit or leaves of the pandan as a food or flavoring.1.2 fiber from the leaves of the pandan, often woven into a material for roofing, mats, etc.
It's interesting how differently these three dictionaries treat this word.
Why is it called "screw pine"? Britannica says "The genus is characterized by numerous long, narrow, parallel-veined, palmlike leaves with spiny margins and midribs that are produced in tufts at the branch tips in three or four close twisted ranks around the stem, forming the screwlike helices of leaves that give the common name screw pine to these plants."
BEE BUZZ 2026-09-29
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3066 V E G I N O T Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3066Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram VETOING makes its debut today, and brings four other new words with it:inventingventingvettingvignette
Four of these five words are present participles (-ING) of root words that were already in the Bee lexicon. Only vignette is entirely new to the lexicon.
One of today’s solutions, veining, is a recent addition to the Bee lexicon, having been disallowed 7 times before it was accepted in 2025. It is one of hundreds of such OUT-IN words in the Bee lexicon; the whole list is HERE.
Another of today’s answers, ogive, has a more complicated history. It has been possible four times; that is, four Bees had the right letters and center letter to form the word. The puzzle editor selected it the first time, then disallowed it the second time, then accepted it each of the next times it was possible, including today. It’s one of only 36 words in the lexicon of 11,200+ words that have this IN-OUT-IN history pattern; the whole list of them is HERE.
Is an omission like that intentional, or just a rare editorial error? Unless the editor makes a public statement, it’s impossible to know for sure. LexiConnexxions compiles reports of Spelling Bee goofs and gaffes; some of them are quite funny. Read them HERE.
LexiConnexxions tracks every change to the Bee lexicon and compiles monthly and annual summary reports; learn more HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
The choice of V for center letter adds interest to this puzzle, as V is rarely chosen for that role; it ranks 19th of the 26 letters in frequency of use as center letter. Learn more about center letters in Bee history HERE.
Today’s Bee is the fifth in September to include letters I+N+G; this is on par with the typical rates (16%-17% of all Bees include I+N+G). Eleven of today’s 32 words end with -ING. Read more about I+N+G and E+D Bees HERE.
WORD NOTES
One of today’s new words – vignette – has an interesting etymology; Merriam-Webster reports that it is “French, from Middle French vignete, from diminutive of vigne, vine.” Etymonline.com expands on this: “1751, ‘decorative design’ on a page of a book, originally a design in the form of vine tendrils running around the borders of a book page, especially around an illustration at the beginning of a book or chapter; from French vignette, from Old French diminutive of vigne ‘vineyard’ (see vine). The English got the style from France. The sense in printing was transferred from the border to the picture itself (by 1830), then (by 1853) to a type of small photographic portrait with blurred edges very popular mid-19c. The meaning ‘literary sketch’ is attested by 1880 and probably extended from the photographic sense. Compare obsolete vinet (late 15c.) ‘ornament in design running or trailing in imitation of vines,’ in decorative work or architecture; by 1620s in reference to a similar design as border on a page.”
Merriam-Webster offers several definitions for vignette that show how we, as speakers and writers, adapt the language to define our changing world:
noun1a: a picture (such as an engraving or photograph) that shades off gradually into the surrounding paperb: the pictorial part of a postage stamp design as distinguished from the frame and lettering2a: a short descriptive literary sketchb: a brief incident or scene (as in a play or movie)3: a running ornament (as of vine leaves, tendrils, and grapes) put on or just before a title page or at the beginning or end of a chapter; also : a small decorative design or picture so placed
verbvignetted; vignettingtransitive verb1: to finish (something, such as a photograph) like a vignette2: to describe briefly As with all words in the Bee lexicon, LexiConnexxions will index vignette according to its several definitions; we have added new entries to the LexiTopics reports on Visual Arts, Writing and Publishing, Dramatic Arts, and Speech and Verbal Expression.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3066 V E G I N O T Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3066Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram VETOING makes its debut today, and brings four other new words with it:inventingventingvettingvignette
Four of these five words are present participles (-ING) of root words that were already in the Bee lexicon. Only vignette is entirely new to the lexicon.
One of today’s solutions, veining, is a recent addition to the Bee lexicon, having been disallowed 7 times before it was accepted in 2025. It is one of hundreds of such OUT-IN words in the Bee lexicon; the whole list is HERE.
Another of today’s answers, ogive, has a more complicated history. It has been possible four times; that is, four Bees had the right letters and center letter to form the word. The puzzle editor selected it the first time, then disallowed it the second time, then accepted it each of the next times it was possible, including today. It’s one of only 36 words in the lexicon of 11,200+ words that have this IN-OUT-IN history pattern; the whole list of them is HERE.
Is an omission like that intentional, or just a rare editorial error? Unless the editor makes a public statement, it’s impossible to know for sure. LexiConnexxions compiles reports of Spelling Bee goofs and gaffes; some of them are quite funny. Read them HERE.
LexiConnexxions tracks every change to the Bee lexicon and compiles monthly and annual summary reports; learn more HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
The choice of V for center letter adds interest to this puzzle, as V is rarely chosen for that role; it ranks 19th of the 26 letters in frequency of use as center letter. Learn more about center letters in Bee history HERE.
Today’s Bee is the fifth in September to include letters I+N+G; this is on par with the typical rates (16%-17% of all Bees include I+N+G). Eleven of today’s 32 words end with -ING. Read more about I+N+G and E+D Bees HERE.
WORD NOTES
One of today’s new words – vignette – has an interesting etymology; Merriam-Webster reports that it is “French, from Middle French vignete, from diminutive of vigne, vine.” Etymonline.com expands on this: “1751, ‘decorative design’ on a page of a book, originally a design in the form of vine tendrils running around the borders of a book page, especially around an illustration at the beginning of a book or chapter; from French vignette, from Old French diminutive of vigne ‘vineyard’ (see vine). The English got the style from France. The sense in printing was transferred from the border to the picture itself (by 1830), then (by 1853) to a type of small photographic portrait with blurred edges very popular mid-19c. The meaning ‘literary sketch’ is attested by 1880 and probably extended from the photographic sense. Compare obsolete vinet (late 15c.) ‘ornament in design running or trailing in imitation of vines,’ in decorative work or architecture; by 1620s in reference to a similar design as border on a page.”
Merriam-Webster offers several definitions for vignette that show how we, as speakers and writers, adapt the language to define our changing world:
noun1a: a picture (such as an engraving or photograph) that shades off gradually into the surrounding paperb: the pictorial part of a postage stamp design as distinguished from the frame and lettering2a: a short descriptive literary sketchb: a brief incident or scene (as in a play or movie)3: a running ornament (as of vine leaves, tendrils, and grapes) put on or just before a title page or at the beginning or end of a chapter; also : a small decorative design or picture so placed
verbvignetted; vignettingtransitive verb1: to finish (something, such as a photograph) like a vignette2: to describe briefly As with all words in the Bee lexicon, LexiConnexxions will index vignette according to its several definitions; we have added new entries to the LexiTopics reports on Visual Arts, Writing and Publishing, Dramatic Arts, and Speech and Verbal Expression.
BEE BUZZ 2026-09-28
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3065 T C D N O R UToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/s/3065/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and pangrams CONDUCTOR and NONCONDUCTOR make their fifth appearance today. Unless the Bee editor changes his practice of never using a letter set more than five times, we won’t see this one again.
No new words were added today, and none discontinued.
One word that was possible in today’s Bee, roto, was used in 57 Bees before being discontinued in 2021. It’s short for rotogravure, another word for photogravure, “a process for printing from an intaglio plate prepared by photographic methods” (M-W). LexiConnexxions has gathered all the Bee-s IN-OUT words in a report HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
With no E+D or I+N+G, no BINGO, no unusual letters, no really unusual words, and having brought no changes to the Bee lexicon, today’s Bee is a very straightforward little puzzle.
Today’s Spelling Bee: #3065 T C D N O R UToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/s/3065/ Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set and pangrams CONDUCTOR and NONCONDUCTOR make their fifth appearance today. Unless the Bee editor changes his practice of never using a letter set more than five times, we won’t see this one again.
No new words were added today, and none discontinued.
One word that was possible in today’s Bee, roto, was used in 57 Bees before being discontinued in 2021. It’s short for rotogravure, another word for photogravure, “a process for printing from an intaglio plate prepared by photographic methods” (M-W). LexiConnexxions has gathered all the Bee-s IN-OUT words in a report HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
With no E+D or I+N+G, no BINGO, no unusual letters, no really unusual words, and having brought no changes to the Bee lexicon, today’s Bee is a very straightforward little puzzle.
BEE BUZZ 2026-09-27
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3064 F D E I L N U Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3064 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/27/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
A new letter set brings four new pangrams today: NULLIFIED, UNFILED, UNFILLED, UNFULFILLED. Only 30 Spelling Bees have had more pangrams than today’s puzzle.
In addition to the four new pangrams, today’s puzzle introduces another new word for the Spelling Bee lexicon: luffed, which was disallowed from six earlier Bees before being accepted today. Bee solvers were delighted when luff was added to the Bee lexicon in March 2025, after having been disallowed 50 times. Only one other word (tipi) has been disallowed more times (55) before being accepted. The new word luffed joins 280 other such OUT-IN words that were accepted into the Bee only after having been disallowed at least once. LexiConnexxions has posted the entire list of OUT-IN words HERE.
Each of today's five new words will be indexed and added to the appropriate LexiTopics reports.
DESIGN NOTES
Record-Setting Word Count: With 78 words, today’s Bee ranks fifth among all Bees in terms of word count. This follows close on the heels of the Bee of September 20, which ranks fourth with 79 words.
E+D Again: Today’s Bee included both E and D, which means that many words could be formed with the -ED suffix, and 36 of today’s 78 words (46%) are adjectives or past-tense verbs that end with -ED. In the Bee Buzz report of September 25, LexiConnexxions noted the increase in the proportion of Bees that include E+D; today’s Bee continues that trend. Learn more about ED and ING Bees HERE.
Today’s Bee is a BINGO Bee – that’s a term that Bee players coined wayyyyy back in the beginning of Bee history. BINGO simply means that each of the seven letters is used to start at least one word in the day’s word list. BINGO is not related to pangram except in this very narrow way: BINGO refers to all the letters, and a pangram contains all the letters. BINGO is not a pangram; a pangram is not BINGO. Every Bee puzzle contains at least one pangram; some Bee puzzles have the BINGO characteristic. Learn more about BINGO and pangrams HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
When certain letter groups appear in the Bee, solvers can benefit by envisioning how those letter groups can be used in different ways within a word: as root, prefix, or suffix. In today’s Bee, the letter groups F-U-L and F-I-L can be seen conveying ideas of fill and fullness in several words: fulfill, fulfilled, full, infill, infilled, needful, unfilled, and unfulfilled. The Bee lexicon includes many words with these letter groups; good solvers keep them in mind. As part of a project to provide helpful "solvers' lists," LexiConnexxions has compiled the entire list of Spelling Bee words that include -FIL- and -FUL-; review it HERE.
WORD NOTES
Duffel and Duffle: Though the Spelling Bee lexicon includes many pairs (and a few triplets) of spelling variants, those pairs or trios don’t always show up together in the same puzzle. For example, while pewee and peewee will always appear together, the three variant spellings of the conical tent – tepee, teepee, and tipi —will not always be in the same puzzle. Today’s Bee includes both duffle and duffel. Merriam-Webster lists duffel first, adding "also duffle." Collins gives the word as duffle, but confusingly adds as examples duffel bag, duffel coat. Duffel is a coarse woolen cloth first made in the 1670s in Duffel, a town in the old duchy of Brabant in what is now Belgium and the Netherlands. The Spelling Bee lexicon includes many such toponyms, words that derive from place names (real or fictional); LexiConnexxions has gathered all the toponyms HERE. The LexiTopic report on Textiles, Fibers, and Needlecrafts include duffel, duffle, and many other related words.
A new letter set brings four new pangrams today: NULLIFIED, UNFILED, UNFILLED, UNFULFILLED. Only 30 Spelling Bees have had more pangrams than today’s puzzle.
In addition to the four new pangrams, today’s puzzle introduces another new word for the Spelling Bee lexicon: luffed, which was disallowed from six earlier Bees before being accepted today. Bee solvers were delighted when luff was added to the Bee lexicon in March 2025, after having been disallowed 50 times. Only one other word (tipi) has been disallowed more times (55) before being accepted. The new word luffed joins 280 other such OUT-IN words that were accepted into the Bee only after having been disallowed at least once. LexiConnexxions has posted the entire list of OUT-IN words HERE.
Each of today's five new words will be indexed and added to the appropriate LexiTopics reports.
DESIGN NOTES
Record-Setting Word Count: With 78 words, today’s Bee ranks fifth among all Bees in terms of word count. This follows close on the heels of the Bee of September 20, which ranks fourth with 79 words.
E+D Again: Today’s Bee included both E and D, which means that many words could be formed with the -ED suffix, and 36 of today’s 78 words (46%) are adjectives or past-tense verbs that end with -ED. In the Bee Buzz report of September 25, LexiConnexxions noted the increase in the proportion of Bees that include E+D; today’s Bee continues that trend. Learn more about ED and ING Bees HERE.
Today’s Bee is a BINGO Bee – that’s a term that Bee players coined wayyyyy back in the beginning of Bee history. BINGO simply means that each of the seven letters is used to start at least one word in the day’s word list. BINGO is not related to pangram except in this very narrow way: BINGO refers to all the letters, and a pangram contains all the letters. BINGO is not a pangram; a pangram is not BINGO. Every Bee puzzle contains at least one pangram; some Bee puzzles have the BINGO characteristic. Learn more about BINGO and pangrams HERE.
SOLVING TIPS
When certain letter groups appear in the Bee, solvers can benefit by envisioning how those letter groups can be used in different ways within a word: as root, prefix, or suffix. In today’s Bee, the letter groups F-U-L and F-I-L can be seen conveying ideas of fill and fullness in several words: fulfill, fulfilled, full, infill, infilled, needful, unfilled, and unfulfilled. The Bee lexicon includes many words with these letter groups; good solvers keep them in mind. As part of a project to provide helpful "solvers' lists," LexiConnexxions has compiled the entire list of Spelling Bee words that include -FIL- and -FUL-; review it HERE.
WORD NOTES
Duffel and Duffle: Though the Spelling Bee lexicon includes many pairs (and a few triplets) of spelling variants, those pairs or trios don’t always show up together in the same puzzle. For example, while pewee and peewee will always appear together, the three variant spellings of the conical tent – tepee, teepee, and tipi —will not always be in the same puzzle. Today’s Bee includes both duffle and duffel. Merriam-Webster lists duffel first, adding "also duffle." Collins gives the word as duffle, but confusingly adds as examples duffel bag, duffel coat. Duffel is a coarse woolen cloth first made in the 1670s in Duffel, a town in the old duchy of Brabant in what is now Belgium and the Netherlands. The Spelling Bee lexicon includes many such toponyms, words that derive from place names (real or fictional); LexiConnexxions has gathered all the toponyms HERE. The LexiTopic report on Textiles, Fibers, and Needlecrafts include duffel, duffle, and many other related words.
BEE BUZZ 2026-09-26
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3063 O C H I M R U Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/v/Ochimru/3063 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram CHROMIUM makes its second appearance today. One new word, humor, was added to the Bee lexicon today; no words were discontinued.
It is perhaps surprising that a word as common as “humor” had not shown up in the Bee until today, more than eight years after the Bee first began. Why? For one simple reason: Because there has never been the right combination of letters and center letter to make it possible. CHROMIUM is the only Bee pangram that has ever included the letters for H-U-M-O-R, and the only other time it was used (Aug 31 2025), the center letter was C, meaning that “humor” was not possible that day.
Five of of today's 30 words were disallowed before being accepted:
cocci disallowed 3x before being accepted; it's now the 38th most frequently used word in the Bee lexiconcoir disallowed 25x before being acceptedichor disallowed 6x before being acceptedmochi disallowed 1x before being acceptedmorocco disallowed 8x before being accepted
Though the Bee lexicon often feels very static and repetitive, there is some movement beneath the surface. Some words that used to be OUT have been IN for so long that many players may not be ware that they were ever OUT. Other Bee words that were OUT for a long time before getting IN include tipi (out 55x), luff (50x), annatto (48x), torta (43x), tallit (42x), annal (36x), canna (32x), teff (28x), dorado (26x), and palapa (26x).
We can't know if, or to what extent, player suggestions inform editorial choice in word selection, but it only takes a sec to send a suggestion to buzzwords@nytimes.com or submit it via this form: https://nyti.ms/4pG5SOF – you never know.
DESIGN NOTES
What about romcom? Merriam-Webster (abridged) shows it as a hyphenated word, but hyphenated words are not accepted in the Bee. But according to the new LexiConnexxions report “What Sam Says About (Nearly) Everything,” the Bee editor consults numerous sources, including several different dictionaries, and it's not likely that any single dictionary can, or would be, the authority for every Bee word. A quick look at the entry for “romcom” in several of his sources shows that they are not consistent as to hyphenation of this word, and that's where editorial prerogative comes into play.
M-W (abridged and unabridged) hyphenates rom-comCollins presents the word without as romcom, without space or hyphen, but adds "in British English"Both NOAD and OED present the word as romcom, without space or hyphen, and neither adds any commentM-W's Scrabble dictionary says "not a playable word"Collins' Scrabble word finder says "allowed"
So if three of the Bee editor’s sources (Collins, NOAD, OED) present the word as unhyphenated romcom, that’s probably reason enough for him to include it in the Bee. And it has always been included every time it has been possible to do so, beginning with the ninth-ever Spelling Bee on May 17, 2018.
WORD NOTES
Today’s pangram, CHROMIUM, is one of 118 chemical element names. Which elements have appeared in the Spelling Bee? Read the LexiConnexxions report “Chemical Elements in the Spelling Bee” HERE.
Morocco is not just a country in North Africa; when spelled with a small m, morocco refers to a kind of leather, which might or might not have been named for the coastal nation. Typically made of goatskin, morocco leather is soft, pliant, and takes color readily. It has long been a popular choice for shoes, handbags, and especially bookbinding. The Spelling Bee lexicon includes many toponyms, words that derive from place names (real or fictional). LexiConnexxions has compiled a gazetteer, of sorts, of the toponyms in the Bee lexicon; find it HERE.
The word humor has many meanings, of course: funny stuff; one’s state of mind or temperament; a whim, and it can also be used as a verb, meaning to coddle or accommodate. Humor is also used to refer to bodily fluids (e.g., vitreous humor) and some secretions, and in fact, the word itself derives from old Latin, Norse, and perhaps Greek words for moisture. And that meaning takes us back to medieval physiology and magical thinking, when the "humors" were the bodily fluids once thought to control character and thought: phlegm, blood, and bile (black and yellow). Bile, blood, and phlegm were already in the Bee lexicon, and with the addition of “humor,” the damp collection is complete. To learn more about those old beliefs about the supposed characteristics of those bodily humors, how their presence was believed to affect human character, thought, and action, and how those ideas survive in words that we use to this very day, including “humor,” click HERE to read LexiConnexxions’ exploration of the topic, “Humor Me.”
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3063 O C H I M R U Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/v/Ochimru/3063 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram CHROMIUM makes its second appearance today. One new word, humor, was added to the Bee lexicon today; no words were discontinued.
It is perhaps surprising that a word as common as “humor” had not shown up in the Bee until today, more than eight years after the Bee first began. Why? For one simple reason: Because there has never been the right combination of letters and center letter to make it possible. CHROMIUM is the only Bee pangram that has ever included the letters for H-U-M-O-R, and the only other time it was used (Aug 31 2025), the center letter was C, meaning that “humor” was not possible that day.
Five of of today's 30 words were disallowed before being accepted:
cocci disallowed 3x before being accepted; it's now the 38th most frequently used word in the Bee lexiconcoir disallowed 25x before being acceptedichor disallowed 6x before being acceptedmochi disallowed 1x before being acceptedmorocco disallowed 8x before being accepted
Though the Bee lexicon often feels very static and repetitive, there is some movement beneath the surface. Some words that used to be OUT have been IN for so long that many players may not be ware that they were ever OUT. Other Bee words that were OUT for a long time before getting IN include tipi (out 55x), luff (50x), annatto (48x), torta (43x), tallit (42x), annal (36x), canna (32x), teff (28x), dorado (26x), and palapa (26x).
We can't know if, or to what extent, player suggestions inform editorial choice in word selection, but it only takes a sec to send a suggestion to buzzwords@nytimes.com or submit it via this form: https://nyti.ms/4pG5SOF – you never know.
DESIGN NOTES
What about romcom? Merriam-Webster (abridged) shows it as a hyphenated word, but hyphenated words are not accepted in the Bee. But according to the new LexiConnexxions report “What Sam Says About (Nearly) Everything,” the Bee editor consults numerous sources, including several different dictionaries, and it's not likely that any single dictionary can, or would be, the authority for every Bee word. A quick look at the entry for “romcom” in several of his sources shows that they are not consistent as to hyphenation of this word, and that's where editorial prerogative comes into play.
M-W (abridged and unabridged) hyphenates rom-comCollins presents the word without as romcom, without space or hyphen, but adds "in British English"Both NOAD and OED present the word as romcom, without space or hyphen, and neither adds any commentM-W's Scrabble dictionary says "not a playable word"Collins' Scrabble word finder says "allowed"
So if three of the Bee editor’s sources (Collins, NOAD, OED) present the word as unhyphenated romcom, that’s probably reason enough for him to include it in the Bee. And it has always been included every time it has been possible to do so, beginning with the ninth-ever Spelling Bee on May 17, 2018.
WORD NOTES
Today’s pangram, CHROMIUM, is one of 118 chemical element names. Which elements have appeared in the Spelling Bee? Read the LexiConnexxions report “Chemical Elements in the Spelling Bee” HERE.
Morocco is not just a country in North Africa; when spelled with a small m, morocco refers to a kind of leather, which might or might not have been named for the coastal nation. Typically made of goatskin, morocco leather is soft, pliant, and takes color readily. It has long been a popular choice for shoes, handbags, and especially bookbinding. The Spelling Bee lexicon includes many toponyms, words that derive from place names (real or fictional). LexiConnexxions has compiled a gazetteer, of sorts, of the toponyms in the Bee lexicon; find it HERE.
The word humor has many meanings, of course: funny stuff; one’s state of mind or temperament; a whim, and it can also be used as a verb, meaning to coddle or accommodate. Humor is also used to refer to bodily fluids (e.g., vitreous humor) and some secretions, and in fact, the word itself derives from old Latin, Norse, and perhaps Greek words for moisture. And that meaning takes us back to medieval physiology and magical thinking, when the "humors" were the bodily fluids once thought to control character and thought: phlegm, blood, and bile (black and yellow). Bile, blood, and phlegm were already in the Bee lexicon, and with the addition of “humor,” the damp collection is complete. To learn more about those old beliefs about the supposed characteristics of those bodily humors, how their presence was believed to affect human character, thought, and action, and how those ideas survive in words that we use to this very day, including “humor,” click HERE to read LexiConnexxions’ exploration of the topic, “Humor Me.”
BEE BUZZ 2026-09-25
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3062 C A D E I N VToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3062 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram DEVIANCE makes its second appearance today. No words were added to the Bee lexicon with this puzzle, and none removed.
But a few of the words in today’s solution set were OUT before they were IN:
CANNA was disallowed from 32 Bees before it was finally selected in 2020; today marks its 90th appearance, making it one of the most frequently-appearing words in the Bee lexicon. INDICA was disallowed from 5 Bees before being accepted in 2021; today is its 15th appearance.INDICIA was disallowed from 3 Bees before being accepted in 2020; today is its 17th appearance.
And two words that might have been included in today’s puzzle were discontinued from the Bee lexicon some time ago:
DACE was included in 8 Bees, but was discontinued in 2024, much to the disappointment of players who note its absence every time it is possible.EDENIC appeared in one Bee back in 2021, but was disallowed the next time it was possible, and has been banished ever since. Most dictionaries capitalize Edenic; its inclusion in that one Bee was probably an editorial slip. (LexiConnexxions has documented many of the Bee’s Goofs and Gaffes HERE.)
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s Bee includes both E and D, which means that many words could be formed with the -ED suffix, and 14 of today’s 59 words are adjectives or past-tense verbs that end with -ED. LexiConnexxions has noted the increase in the proportion of Bees that include E+D:
In 2025, E+D occurred: 61 times in 365 days (16.71%)5.08 times per month
In Jan through Aug 2026, E+D occurred:43 times in 243 days (17.69%)5.38 times per month
In Sep 2026 so far (25 days), E+D has occurred:7 times in 25 days (28%)7.0 times per this month so far
Of the 20 new letter sets introduced since June 2026, 6 (30%) have included E+D.
Learn more about ED and ING Bees HERE.
With 59 words, the solution set for today’s Bee is significantly larger than the average Bee. In the Spelling Bee forum recently, a few players who prefer shorter Bees have commented that, on average, the Bees seem to be getting longer (that is, having more words in the solution set), while those who prefer longer Bees think that they have been getting shorter (fewer words). Personal preferences and recency bias can affect how we perceive these sorts of things. What are the facts?
For all of 2025:Mean 44.89Median 45Mode 41Minimum 18Maximum 77
For all Bees so far in 2026, including today:Mean 45.35Median 46Modes 50, 38, 41, 48Minimum 16Maximum 80
Here are the numbers just for Aug 1 to Sep 25:Mean 44.98Median 42Mode 41Minimum 17Maximum 79
Over time, then, there’s very little deviation from historical averages, but perhaps the presence of more very large and very small Bees may give a different impression.
mean = averagemedian = the central number of a data set, halfway from top to bottom when all the numbers are arranged in ordermode = the number(s) in a data set that occur(s) most frequently WORD NOTES
Today’s Bee includes two musical terms: cadence and vivace. The word “cadence” has several meanings, all related to the rise and fall of music, sounds, or rhythms. A musician might use the word as a verb, saying “The first movement cadenced in F major” – using cadence as a verb. And a member of the audience at a poetry reading or lecture might refer to the speaker’s “nicely cadenced voice.” But “cadenced” was not selected for today’s Bee. The LexiConnexxions analysis has identified many words related to music in the Spelling Bee lexicon, as reported HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3062 C A D E I N VToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3062 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s pangram DEVIANCE makes its second appearance today. No words were added to the Bee lexicon with this puzzle, and none removed.
But a few of the words in today’s solution set were OUT before they were IN:
CANNA was disallowed from 32 Bees before it was finally selected in 2020; today marks its 90th appearance, making it one of the most frequently-appearing words in the Bee lexicon. INDICA was disallowed from 5 Bees before being accepted in 2021; today is its 15th appearance.INDICIA was disallowed from 3 Bees before being accepted in 2020; today is its 17th appearance.
And two words that might have been included in today’s puzzle were discontinued from the Bee lexicon some time ago:
DACE was included in 8 Bees, but was discontinued in 2024, much to the disappointment of players who note its absence every time it is possible.EDENIC appeared in one Bee back in 2021, but was disallowed the next time it was possible, and has been banished ever since. Most dictionaries capitalize Edenic; its inclusion in that one Bee was probably an editorial slip. (LexiConnexxions has documented many of the Bee’s Goofs and Gaffes HERE.)
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s Bee includes both E and D, which means that many words could be formed with the -ED suffix, and 14 of today’s 59 words are adjectives or past-tense verbs that end with -ED. LexiConnexxions has noted the increase in the proportion of Bees that include E+D:
In 2025, E+D occurred: 61 times in 365 days (16.71%)5.08 times per month
In Jan through Aug 2026, E+D occurred:43 times in 243 days (17.69%)5.38 times per month
In Sep 2026 so far (25 days), E+D has occurred:7 times in 25 days (28%)7.0 times per this month so far
Of the 20 new letter sets introduced since June 2026, 6 (30%) have included E+D.
Learn more about ED and ING Bees HERE.
With 59 words, the solution set for today’s Bee is significantly larger than the average Bee. In the Spelling Bee forum recently, a few players who prefer shorter Bees have commented that, on average, the Bees seem to be getting longer (that is, having more words in the solution set), while those who prefer longer Bees think that they have been getting shorter (fewer words). Personal preferences and recency bias can affect how we perceive these sorts of things. What are the facts?
For all of 2025:Mean 44.89Median 45Mode 41Minimum 18Maximum 77
For all Bees so far in 2026, including today:Mean 45.35Median 46Modes 50, 38, 41, 48Minimum 16Maximum 80
Here are the numbers just for Aug 1 to Sep 25:Mean 44.98Median 42Mode 41Minimum 17Maximum 79
Over time, then, there’s very little deviation from historical averages, but perhaps the presence of more very large and very small Bees may give a different impression.
mean = averagemedian = the central number of a data set, halfway from top to bottom when all the numbers are arranged in ordermode = the number(s) in a data set that occur(s) most frequently WORD NOTES
Today’s Bee includes two musical terms: cadence and vivace. The word “cadence” has several meanings, all related to the rise and fall of music, sounds, or rhythms. A musician might use the word as a verb, saying “The first movement cadenced in F major” – using cadence as a verb. And a member of the audience at a poetry reading or lecture might refer to the speaker’s “nicely cadenced voice.” But “cadenced” was not selected for today’s Bee. The LexiConnexxions analysis has identified many words related to music in the Spelling Bee lexicon, as reported HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-09-24
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3061 P A B E L O WToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3061 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html#commentsContainer
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
The pangram PLOWABLE makes its third appearance today. No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and no words were discontinued.
The presence of letters A B E L in the pangram will prompt players to look for words that end with the -ABLE suffix. There are four such words in today’s Bee: appealable, palpable, peelable, and PLOWABLE. Those and other -ABLE words are in “Ready and Able,” LexiConnexxions’ list of all Bee words that include “able” or “ible.” It’s one of many such Word Lists for Bee Solvers in the WordPlay section of this site.
DESIGN NOTES
It’s interesting to note how the choice of center letter affects the size and texture of the solution set, as shown in these data from each of the three uses of the pangram PLOWABLE:
Jan 8 2022 W A B E L O P 29 words, 121 points, no bingo2 new words that day: PLOWABLE (the pangram) and allowable
Dec 20 2024B A E L O P W47 words, 178 points, bingono new words added, none removed
Sep 24 2026P A B E L O W54 words, 201 points, bingono new words added, none removed
The relative sizes of these solution sets – largest with center letter P, middling with center letter B, and smallest with center letter W – may reflect the relative frequency of those letters within English language dictionaries, where P occurs more often than B, which occurs more often than W.
WORD NOTES
What about the word “apollo?” There was some discussion about it in today’s Spelling Bee forum. While most players are probably familiar with the proper noun Apollo – the handsome god of myth, and the spacecraft – it can also be spelled with a lower case c, meaning either a handsome young man, or a particular species of butterfly.
The word "apollo" was used in six Bees (2018-2020), then discontinued.
It's in NOAD, uncapitalized, defined as follows: A large butterfly which has creamy-white wings marked with black and red spots, found chiefly on the mountains of mainland Europe. (This definition is indexed in the LexiTopics report on Animals.)
M-W abridged does not include the butterfly, and M-W abridged includes it but capitalizes it as "Apollo butterfly."
Collins includes both the young man and the butterfly as uncapitalized nouns, and labels them as British English:
apolloin British Englisha strikingly handsome youth
apolloin British Englisha handsome Eurasian mountain butterfly, Parnassius apollo, with palish wings and prominent red ocelli Both of those uses – the handsome young man and the handsome butterfly – are named for the handsome god Apollo, and the word is included in the LexiConnexxions report on eponyms in the Spelling Bee lexicon.
The Bee lexicon does include a handful of British words, as LexiConnexxions has documented HERE. And of course the Bee lexicon includes botanicals and animals from around the world.
But “apollo” is probably both too British and a little too niche for the Spelling Bee, and that may explain why it was discontinued.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3061 P A B E L O WToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3061 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html#commentsContainer
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
The pangram PLOWABLE makes its third appearance today. No words were added to the Bee lexicon today, and no words were discontinued.
The presence of letters A B E L in the pangram will prompt players to look for words that end with the -ABLE suffix. There are four such words in today’s Bee: appealable, palpable, peelable, and PLOWABLE. Those and other -ABLE words are in “Ready and Able,” LexiConnexxions’ list of all Bee words that include “able” or “ible.” It’s one of many such Word Lists for Bee Solvers in the WordPlay section of this site.
DESIGN NOTES
It’s interesting to note how the choice of center letter affects the size and texture of the solution set, as shown in these data from each of the three uses of the pangram PLOWABLE:
Jan 8 2022 W A B E L O P 29 words, 121 points, no bingo2 new words that day: PLOWABLE (the pangram) and allowable
Dec 20 2024B A E L O P W47 words, 178 points, bingono new words added, none removed
Sep 24 2026P A B E L O W54 words, 201 points, bingono new words added, none removed
The relative sizes of these solution sets – largest with center letter P, middling with center letter B, and smallest with center letter W – may reflect the relative frequency of those letters within English language dictionaries, where P occurs more often than B, which occurs more often than W.
WORD NOTES
What about the word “apollo?” There was some discussion about it in today’s Spelling Bee forum. While most players are probably familiar with the proper noun Apollo – the handsome god of myth, and the spacecraft – it can also be spelled with a lower case c, meaning either a handsome young man, or a particular species of butterfly.
The word "apollo" was used in six Bees (2018-2020), then discontinued.
It's in NOAD, uncapitalized, defined as follows: A large butterfly which has creamy-white wings marked with black and red spots, found chiefly on the mountains of mainland Europe. (This definition is indexed in the LexiTopics report on Animals.)
M-W abridged does not include the butterfly, and M-W abridged includes it but capitalizes it as "Apollo butterfly."
Collins includes both the young man and the butterfly as uncapitalized nouns, and labels them as British English:
apolloin British Englisha strikingly handsome youth
apolloin British Englisha handsome Eurasian mountain butterfly, Parnassius apollo, with palish wings and prominent red ocelli Both of those uses – the handsome young man and the handsome butterfly – are named for the handsome god Apollo, and the word is included in the LexiConnexxions report on eponyms in the Spelling Bee lexicon.
The Bee lexicon does include a handful of British words, as LexiConnexxions has documented HERE. And of course the Bee lexicon includes botanicals and animals from around the world.
But “apollo” is probably both too British and a little too niche for the Spelling Bee, and that may explain why it was discontinued.
BEE BUZZ 2026-09-23
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3060 I D G L N Y Z Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3060 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s Bee marks the second use of this letter set and its pangram DIZZYINGLY.
For today’s Bee, the editor chose to include the word “giddying,” which had been specifically excluded from the first Bee that used this pangram, and from two other Bees that had similar letters. It joins a long list of similar OUT-IN words that were added to the Bee lexicon after having been specifically excluded. LexiConnexxions' list of all OUT-IN words is HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Of all 1,893 pangrams that have been used in the Spelling Bee, only 42 pangrams, including DIZZYINGLY, have only one vowel plus Y (where Y functions as a vowel, not a consonant). These 42 pangrams have been used in 85 Spelling Bees. (Most Bees, such as today’s, are built on recycled pangrams.) You can see the list of single-vowel Bees HERE.
And of the 3,060 Bee puzzles to date, today’s is only the 125th to include the letter Z. More details on rare letters (J Q S X Z) in the Bee are HERE.
WORD NOTES
Whenever a new word is added to the Bee lexicon, LexiConnexxions researches its meaning(s) and etymology, and updates the relevant LexiTopic and WordPlay reports with the new information. Here’s how that works, using today’s new word “giddying” as an example.
Merriam-Webster offers several definitions for giddy, the word from which “giddying” derives. As compiled (and edited slightly) for the LexiTopics reports, these definitions for giddy are:
1 [adj and verb] dizzy: having a whirling sensation in the head with a tendency to fall (giddy from the unaccustomed exercise); also, causing dizziness (a giddy height); also, to make giddy; to become giddy
2 [adj] whirling rapidly
3 [adj and verb] lightheartedly silly: frivolous; also, to make giddy; to become giddy
4 [adj and verb] joyfully elated: euphoric (was giddy with delight); also, to make giddy; to become giddy
Those definitions are indexed in four LexiTopics reports:
1 Human Health and Medicine: Consciousness and Sleep2 Motions: Movements: Spiraling, Rotating, Curving, Curling3 People: Thought and Comprehension: Wisdom and Foolishness4 People: Emotion and Affect: Happiness and Joy
As “giddying” is the gerund of the verb “to giddy,” LexiConnexxions will create an entry for that word in each of the three topics that include “giddy” as a verb, as shown in bold above.
LexiConnexxions updates the LexiTopics reports whenever a word is added to the Bee lexicon.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3060 I D G L N Y Z Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3060 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s Bee marks the second use of this letter set and its pangram DIZZYINGLY.
For today’s Bee, the editor chose to include the word “giddying,” which had been specifically excluded from the first Bee that used this pangram, and from two other Bees that had similar letters. It joins a long list of similar OUT-IN words that were added to the Bee lexicon after having been specifically excluded. LexiConnexxions' list of all OUT-IN words is HERE.
DESIGN NOTES
Of all 1,893 pangrams that have been used in the Spelling Bee, only 42 pangrams, including DIZZYINGLY, have only one vowel plus Y (where Y functions as a vowel, not a consonant). These 42 pangrams have been used in 85 Spelling Bees. (Most Bees, such as today’s, are built on recycled pangrams.) You can see the list of single-vowel Bees HERE.
And of the 3,060 Bee puzzles to date, today’s is only the 125th to include the letter Z. More details on rare letters (J Q S X Z) in the Bee are HERE.
WORD NOTES
Whenever a new word is added to the Bee lexicon, LexiConnexxions researches its meaning(s) and etymology, and updates the relevant LexiTopic and WordPlay reports with the new information. Here’s how that works, using today’s new word “giddying” as an example.
Merriam-Webster offers several definitions for giddy, the word from which “giddying” derives. As compiled (and edited slightly) for the LexiTopics reports, these definitions for giddy are:
1 [adj and verb] dizzy: having a whirling sensation in the head with a tendency to fall (giddy from the unaccustomed exercise); also, causing dizziness (a giddy height); also, to make giddy; to become giddy
2 [adj] whirling rapidly
3 [adj and verb] lightheartedly silly: frivolous; also, to make giddy; to become giddy
4 [adj and verb] joyfully elated: euphoric (was giddy with delight); also, to make giddy; to become giddy
Those definitions are indexed in four LexiTopics reports:
1 Human Health and Medicine: Consciousness and Sleep2 Motions: Movements: Spiraling, Rotating, Curving, Curling3 People: Thought and Comprehension: Wisdom and Foolishness4 People: Emotion and Affect: Happiness and Joy
As “giddying” is the gerund of the verb “to giddy,” LexiConnexxions will create an entry for that word in each of the three topics that include “giddy” as a verb, as shown in bold above.
LexiConnexxions updates the LexiTopics reports whenever a word is added to the Bee lexicon.
BEE BUZZ 2026-09-22
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3059 N O Q U X E IToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3059 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
This is one of the very, very rare themed Bees in which the pangram is related to the calendar date or other event. In the United States (home of the Bee), the autumnal equinox occurs today, September 22, 2026, at 8:05 p.m. EDT, and the pangram was EQUINOX.
This is a brand new letter set and a new pangram, always nice to see. No other words were added (or discontinued) today.
This is also the first Spelling Bee puzzle to include four vowels.
DESIGN NOTES
With only 18 words, today’s Bee is one of the 16 smallest puzzles in Bee history; Of 3059 Bees so far, only ten have had 18 words; three have had 17 words, and three have had 16 words.
Also of interest: Today’s Bee uses only the third pangram ever to include more than one of the Bee's rare letters (J Q S X Z); the first was OXIDIZING, on 2021-04-15; the second was on 2026-05-29, when the pangram was SQUEAKY [third S puzzle, Sam's birthday gift to himself. We will always wonder if that was his childhood nickname.] And today we have EQUINOX.
How impressive is that Sam managed to wrest a BINGO Bee from this letter set?
WORD NOTES
In today’s Spelling Bee forum, many players commented on the fact that “quoin” was not selected for today’s puzzle. The reason for its exclusion may lie in the fact that it is a common crossword puzzle entry, and the Bee editor has said that he generally excludes common crossword words. (Of course, that is not strictly true.) Still “quoin” would fit in with other architectural terms in the Bee lexicon, including cordon, ogee, ogive, newel, fantail, portal, tori, toric, finial, abaci, and lot of others, as collected in the LexiTopics report for Buildings, Architecture, and Construction.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3059 N O Q U X E IToday’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3059 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
This is one of the very, very rare themed Bees in which the pangram is related to the calendar date or other event. In the United States (home of the Bee), the autumnal equinox occurs today, September 22, 2026, at 8:05 p.m. EDT, and the pangram was EQUINOX.
This is a brand new letter set and a new pangram, always nice to see. No other words were added (or discontinued) today.
This is also the first Spelling Bee puzzle to include four vowels.
DESIGN NOTES
With only 18 words, today’s Bee is one of the 16 smallest puzzles in Bee history; Of 3059 Bees so far, only ten have had 18 words; three have had 17 words, and three have had 16 words.
Also of interest: Today’s Bee uses only the third pangram ever to include more than one of the Bee's rare letters (J Q S X Z); the first was OXIDIZING, on 2021-04-15; the second was on 2026-05-29, when the pangram was SQUEAKY [third S puzzle, Sam's birthday gift to himself. We will always wonder if that was his childhood nickname.] And today we have EQUINOX.
How impressive is that Sam managed to wrest a BINGO Bee from this letter set?
WORD NOTES
In today’s Spelling Bee forum, many players commented on the fact that “quoin” was not selected for today’s puzzle. The reason for its exclusion may lie in the fact that it is a common crossword puzzle entry, and the Bee editor has said that he generally excludes common crossword words. (Of course, that is not strictly true.) Still “quoin” would fit in with other architectural terms in the Bee lexicon, including cordon, ogee, ogive, newel, fantail, portal, tori, toric, finial, abaci, and lot of others, as collected in the LexiTopics report for Buildings, Architecture, and Construction.
BEE BUZZ 2026-09-21
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3058 N A B E J L Y Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3058 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
This letter set and its little pangram JELLYBEAN makes its third appearance today. No words were added to the Bee lexicon, and none was removed. Nothing to see here.
DESIGN NOTES
Letter J is rare in the Spelling Bee; of the 3,058 Bees to date, today’s puzzle is only the 90th to include the letter J. In the Bee lexicon of more than 11,200 words and about 72,000 letters, the letter J appears only 127 times. It’s rare!
WORD NOTES
In today’s Spelling Bee forum, some commenters noted that Merriam-Webster presents the pangram as an open compound, jelly bean, and wondered how it could be accepted in Spelling Bee. Though we can’t know exactly which dictionarie(s) the Spelling Bee editor takes as authority for any particular Bee word, he has named NOAD (New Oxford American Dictionary), Collins and the Scrabble Dictionary as sources, and the New York Times says that the Oxford English Dictionary is the source dictionary for the Spelling Bee. Most Bee solvers consult M-W, NOAD, and Collins; what do they say?
M-W abridgedjelly bean, noun: a sugar-glazed bean-shaped candy
M-W unabridgedjelly bean noun1: a sugar-coated candy bean with a gum or jelly center2: a weak, spineless, or effeminate person
Collins (entries collated from multiple dictionaries)jellybean in American English nouna small, bean-shaped, usually brightly colored candy with a hard sugar coating and a firm gelatinous fillingjellybean in British English nouna bean-shaped sweet with a brightly coloured coating around a gelatinous filling
NOADjelly bean (also jellybean) nouna bean-shaped candy with a gelatinous center and a firm sugar coating.
Collins shows jellybean as a single word, and that single citation (bolstered by NOAD’s entry of “jelly bean (also jellybean)” seems to justify the word’s inclusion in the Bee.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3058 N A B E J L Y Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/3058 Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
This letter set and its little pangram JELLYBEAN makes its third appearance today. No words were added to the Bee lexicon, and none was removed. Nothing to see here.
DESIGN NOTES
Letter J is rare in the Spelling Bee; of the 3,058 Bees to date, today’s puzzle is only the 90th to include the letter J. In the Bee lexicon of more than 11,200 words and about 72,000 letters, the letter J appears only 127 times. It’s rare!
WORD NOTES
In today’s Spelling Bee forum, some commenters noted that Merriam-Webster presents the pangram as an open compound, jelly bean, and wondered how it could be accepted in Spelling Bee. Though we can’t know exactly which dictionarie(s) the Spelling Bee editor takes as authority for any particular Bee word, he has named NOAD (New Oxford American Dictionary), Collins and the Scrabble Dictionary as sources, and the New York Times says that the Oxford English Dictionary is the source dictionary for the Spelling Bee. Most Bee solvers consult M-W, NOAD, and Collins; what do they say?
M-W abridgedjelly bean, noun: a sugar-glazed bean-shaped candy
M-W unabridgedjelly bean noun1: a sugar-coated candy bean with a gum or jelly center2: a weak, spineless, or effeminate person
Collins (entries collated from multiple dictionaries)jellybean in American English nouna small, bean-shaped, usually brightly colored candy with a hard sugar coating and a firm gelatinous fillingjellybean in British English nouna bean-shaped sweet with a brightly coloured coating around a gelatinous filling
NOADjelly bean (also jellybean) nouna bean-shaped candy with a gelatinous center and a firm sugar coating.
Collins shows jellybean as a single word, and that single citation (bolstered by NOAD’s entry of “jelly bean (also jellybean)” seems to justify the word’s inclusion in the Bee.
BEE BUZZ 2026-09-20
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3057 H A C E I L T Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/s/3057Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set, H A C E I L T, with pangrams ATHLETIC and ETHICAL, was used just once before (with center letter I). That makes it relatively fresh (having an “age” of 2.0 uses) compared to the average “age” of all pangrams and letter sets in 2025 (2.68 uses) and the average “age” of all the recycled pangrams and letter sets in 2025 (3.16 uses). See more statistics from 2025 HERE.
As happens with most recycled pangrams, especially those that are composed of common letters as are ATHLETIC and ETHICAL, no new words were added to the Bee lexicon today. This continues the downward trend in the rate at which new words are added to the lexicon, as noted by LexiConnexxions about a year ago.
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s solution set of 79 words is colossal; in fact, of the 3000+ Bees to date, today’s puzzle ties for fourth place with one other Bee that had 79 words. Only two Bees have had more words (80 and 81).
WORD NOTES
In the Spelling Bee forum today, one commenter referred to TELEHEALTH as “not a real word” and complained that the Bee editor includes “made up words” in the puzzle. Of course, all words in every language are “made up” – that’s how language is made. The Bee editor doesn’t decide what is or is not a word; we, the speakers and writers, are the ones who invent and shape language. Lexicographers record in dictionaries the way that we all speak and write. Some of the words we use every day are, like TELEHEALTH, blend or portmanteau words. There are dozens of them in the Spelling Bee lexicon, some of them quite old; see the whole list HERE. The Bee lexicon also includes reductions, pronunciations, and contractions – words like albeit, gonna, gimme, dammit. You can see the list HERE.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3057 H A C E I L T Today’s sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/s/3057Today’s Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set, H A C E I L T, with pangrams ATHLETIC and ETHICAL, was used just once before (with center letter I). That makes it relatively fresh (having an “age” of 2.0 uses) compared to the average “age” of all pangrams and letter sets in 2025 (2.68 uses) and the average “age” of all the recycled pangrams and letter sets in 2025 (3.16 uses). See more statistics from 2025 HERE.
As happens with most recycled pangrams, especially those that are composed of common letters as are ATHLETIC and ETHICAL, no new words were added to the Bee lexicon today. This continues the downward trend in the rate at which new words are added to the lexicon, as noted by LexiConnexxions about a year ago.
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s solution set of 79 words is colossal; in fact, of the 3000+ Bees to date, today’s puzzle ties for fourth place with one other Bee that had 79 words. Only two Bees have had more words (80 and 81).
WORD NOTES
In the Spelling Bee forum today, one commenter referred to TELEHEALTH as “not a real word” and complained that the Bee editor includes “made up words” in the puzzle. Of course, all words in every language are “made up” – that’s how language is made. The Bee editor doesn’t decide what is or is not a word; we, the speakers and writers, are the ones who invent and shape language. Lexicographers record in dictionaries the way that we all speak and write. Some of the words we use every day are, like TELEHEALTH, blend or portmanteau words. There are dozens of them in the Spelling Bee lexicon, some of them quite old; see the whole list HERE. The Bee lexicon also includes reductions, pronunciations, and contractions – words like albeit, gonna, gimme, dammit. You can see the list HERE.
BEE BUZZ 2026-09-19
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3056 B G I L N O TToday's sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/s/3056Today's Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/19/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set B G I L N O T makes its debut today, and introduces four new words, all of them pangrams: BILTONG, BLOTTING, BOLTING, BOTTLING.
As has happened with increasing frequency in the past few years, this new letter set brought new pangram(s) but no other new words. And three of the four pangrams are present participles of words already in the Bee lexicon (blot, bolt, bottle). Only “biltong” is an entirely new word in the Bee lexicon, being unrelated to any words used in the Bee thus far.
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s letter set includes I+N+G, the third Bee in September to do so.
In Spelling Bee lingo, the term "BINGO" means that each of the seven letters is used to start at least one word in the day’s word list. It is a characteristic of some, but not all, Bee puzzles. (Click HERE to learn more about BINGO.) A BINGO "indicator" is given in the puzzle data that's published at the top of the official Hints page, as explained HERE. Today’s puzzle is not a BINGO puzzle, but the word “bingo” is in the solution set, and in fact makes its 11th appearance today. One of those 11 Bees in which the word "bingo" appeared – that of March 25, 2024 – was, in fact, a BINGO puzzle, meaning that the puzzle data section on the Hints page showed the word. A spoiler. Of course, the official Hints page includes other words that show up in the Spelling Bee puzzle from time to time — WORD, POINT, FORUM, GRID — but given that BINGO is both a less common word and more particular to the Spelling Bee than the other words, the co-incidence of the word BINGO with the BINGO puzzle was interesting. (The word PANGRAM has not yet appeared in a Spelling Bee.)
Today’s solution set comprises 58 words. A very high proportion of that list – 45, or 77.6% -- begin with the center letter B. This is similar to a Bee from several days ago (2026-09-06, letter set B A D E G N O) in which 51 of the 68 words (75%) began with the center letter B. WORD NOTES
One of today’s debut pangrams, BILTONG, is an interesting addition to the Bee lexicon. It’s a dried meat product similar to beef jerky, but its base meats – not only beef, but ostrich, kudu, or other game meats – and its lively seasonings of vinegar, coriander, and other spices set it apart. Merriam-Webster (abridged) gives its etymology as "Afrikaans, from bil rump + tong tongue." A review of news articles and other recent publications shows that biltong may be found in many American grocery stores, including major chains. LexiConnexxions has added biltong to the LexiTopics report on Food and Drink.
Today’s Spelling Bee: # 3056 B G I L N O TToday's sbsolver.com report: https://www.sbsolver.com/s/3056Today's Spelling Bee Forum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/19/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum.html
PANGRAM(S), LETTER SET, INS AND OUTS
Today’s letter set B G I L N O T makes its debut today, and introduces four new words, all of them pangrams: BILTONG, BLOTTING, BOLTING, BOTTLING.
As has happened with increasing frequency in the past few years, this new letter set brought new pangram(s) but no other new words. And three of the four pangrams are present participles of words already in the Bee lexicon (blot, bolt, bottle). Only “biltong” is an entirely new word in the Bee lexicon, being unrelated to any words used in the Bee thus far.
DESIGN NOTES
Today’s letter set includes I+N+G, the third Bee in September to do so.
In Spelling Bee lingo, the term "BINGO" means that each of the seven letters is used to start at least one word in the day’s word list. It is a characteristic of some, but not all, Bee puzzles. (Click HERE to learn more about BINGO.) A BINGO "indicator" is given in the puzzle data that's published at the top of the official Hints page, as explained HERE. Today’s puzzle is not a BINGO puzzle, but the word “bingo” is in the solution set, and in fact makes its 11th appearance today. One of those 11 Bees in which the word "bingo" appeared – that of March 25, 2024 – was, in fact, a BINGO puzzle, meaning that the puzzle data section on the Hints page showed the word. A spoiler. Of course, the official Hints page includes other words that show up in the Spelling Bee puzzle from time to time — WORD, POINT, FORUM, GRID — but given that BINGO is both a less common word and more particular to the Spelling Bee than the other words, the co-incidence of the word BINGO with the BINGO puzzle was interesting. (The word PANGRAM has not yet appeared in a Spelling Bee.)
Today’s solution set comprises 58 words. A very high proportion of that list – 45, or 77.6% -- begin with the center letter B. This is similar to a Bee from several days ago (2026-09-06, letter set B A D E G N O) in which 51 of the 68 words (75%) began with the center letter B. WORD NOTES
One of today’s debut pangrams, BILTONG, is an interesting addition to the Bee lexicon. It’s a dried meat product similar to beef jerky, but its base meats – not only beef, but ostrich, kudu, or other game meats – and its lively seasonings of vinegar, coriander, and other spices set it apart. Merriam-Webster (abridged) gives its etymology as "Afrikaans, from bil rump + tong tongue." A review of news articles and other recent publications shows that biltong may be found in many American grocery stores, including major chains. LexiConnexxions has added biltong to the LexiTopics report on Food and Drink.
If you cite information from this LexiConnexxions report, please give credit and a link to this page. These reports and analyses are compiled and prepared by a human being, not a machine. Thank you.
ESSENTIAL SPELLING BEE RESOURCES
The Spelling Bee Puzzlehttps://www.nytimes.com/puzzles/spelling-bee
The Spelling Bee Forumhttps://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/spelling-bee-forum
The Spelling Bee Forum https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/spelling-bee-forum Glossary of Spelling Bee Termshttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/26/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum-introduction.html
Spelling Bee Buddyhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/upshot/spelling-bee-buddy.htmlAn interactive tool that provides personalized hints and statistics for your daily Spelling Bee solve.
NYT Help page for Spelling Beehttps://help.nytimes.com/23675493312404-Spelling-Bee
NYT Help page for all gameshttps://help.nytimes.com/360011158491-New-York-Times-Games
Suggest a word for Spelling BeeWithin the Bee puzzle, open the "More" dropdown and choose "Suggest a Word. This links to form by which players may suggest words to be included in the Bee. A direct link is here: https://nyti.ms/4pG5SOFPlayers may also email their suggestions to buzzwords@nytimes.com, especially if they wish to include more information than the form allows.
Provide feedback to the NYT about the Spelling Beehttps://iteratehq.com/nytimes/6776de5d8b6862943a0fb831
The Spelling Bee Forumhttps://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/spelling-bee-forum
The Spelling Bee Forum https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/spelling-bee-forum Glossary of Spelling Bee Termshttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/26/crosswords/spelling-bee-forum-introduction.html
Spelling Bee Buddyhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/upshot/spelling-bee-buddy.htmlAn interactive tool that provides personalized hints and statistics for your daily Spelling Bee solve.
NYT Help page for Spelling Beehttps://help.nytimes.com/23675493312404-Spelling-Bee
NYT Help page for all gameshttps://help.nytimes.com/360011158491-New-York-Times-Games
Suggest a word for Spelling BeeWithin the Bee puzzle, open the "More" dropdown and choose "Suggest a Word. This links to form by which players may suggest words to be included in the Bee. A direct link is here: https://nyti.ms/4pG5SOFPlayers may also email their suggestions to buzzwords@nytimes.com, especially if they wish to include more information than the form allows.
Provide feedback to the NYT about the Spelling Beehttps://iteratehq.com/nytimes/6776de5d8b6862943a0fb831