Spelling Bees of Special Interest
Here are details on several Spelling Bees of special interest to Bee solvers. Updated whenever we discover something or receive a tip from an alert reader.
The Spelling Bee of 2024-08-11: The pangram was spelled out on the official Hints page
On August 11, 2024, Bee solvers who checked the official Spelling Bee Hints for the day’s Spelling Bee found an unusual sight:
The letter set array spelled out one of the day’s pangrams, BACKLOT. (The other pangram was BOOTBLACK.)
This was the first time that this had happened in Bee history.
The letter set array on the Hints page is always formatted in the same way: Center letter (in bold), followed by the other six letters in alphabetical order. The information on the Hint page conformed exactly to this pattern; it just happened to spell out one of the pangrams.
This was the first time that this had happened in Bee history.
The letter set array on the Hints page is always formatted in the same way: Center letter (in bold), followed by the other six letters in alphabetical order. The information on the Hint page conformed exactly to this pattern; it just happened to spell out one of the pangrams.
Once in a great while, the letter set array hints strongly at the pangram, as in these examples:
CHIKORY (pangram HICKORY) September 29 2020 LADNRUY (pangram LAUNDRY) November 6 2021 ACHNOVY (pangram ANCHOVY) February 3 2022 FACILTY (pangram FACILITY) June 29 2022
There are very few like these in Bee history, perhaps a half dozen, but not until the Bee of August 11, 2024 had a full pangram been perfectly spelled out in the letter set array.
CHIKORY (pangram HICKORY) September 29 2020 LADNRUY (pangram LAUNDRY) November 6 2021 ACHNOVY (pangram ANCHOVY) February 3 2022 FACILTY (pangram FACILITY) June 29 2022
There are very few like these in Bee history, perhaps a half dozen, but not until the Bee of August 11, 2024 had a full pangram been perfectly spelled out in the letter set array.
The Spelling Bee of 2024-08-09: Center letter Z and just 16 words
With center letter Z and just 16 words, the Spelling Bee puzzle of 2024-08-09 was among the most interesting in Bee history. Here’s why:
1 – Rare use of center letter Z: The Spelling Bee of August 9, 2024 marked just the 6th time that Z had been selected as the center letter. (The last time was on November 5, 2022.) By contrast, the most frequently-used center letters (O, A, L, and T) have been used about 200 times each.
2 – One of the shortest Bee puzzles: The Bee of August 9, 2024 was one of the two shortest ever, having only 16 words. Only one other Bee has had so few words (March 27, 2023). So, this Bee ties for first place, in terms of fewest words. Most Spelling Bees have, on average, 40-45 words.
3 – One of the longest Bee words: The longest word in this puzzle(ANTAGONZING) was 12 letters long; it is one of just 42 12-letter words in the Bee lexicon of nearly 10,300 words. Only nine Bee words have 13 or more letters; thus, the 12-letter word in this puzzle tied (as of this date) for 10th place in terms of word length.
1 – Rare use of center letter Z: The Spelling Bee of August 9, 2024 marked just the 6th time that Z had been selected as the center letter. (The last time was on November 5, 2022.) By contrast, the most frequently-used center letters (O, A, L, and T) have been used about 200 times each.
2 – One of the shortest Bee puzzles: The Bee of August 9, 2024 was one of the two shortest ever, having only 16 words. Only one other Bee has had so few words (March 27, 2023). So, this Bee ties for first place, in terms of fewest words. Most Spelling Bees have, on average, 40-45 words.
3 – One of the longest Bee words: The longest word in this puzzle(ANTAGONZING) was 12 letters long; it is one of just 42 12-letter words in the Bee lexicon of nearly 10,300 words. Only nine Bee words have 13 or more letters; thus, the 12-letter word in this puzzle tied (as of this date) for 10th place in terms of word length.
SOLUTION SET FOR SPELLING BEE 2024-08-09:AGONIZINGANTAGONIZING [12 letters long]GAZING GONZOIONIZATIONIONIZINGOOZINGZAGGINGZIGGINGZIGZAGZIGZAGGINGZINGZINGINGZINNIAZITIZONING
The Spelling Bee of 2024-07-04: Center letter J and just 18 words
With center letter J and just 18 words, the Spelling Bee puzzle of 2024-07-04 was among the most interesting in Bee history. Here’s why:
1 – One of the shortest Bee puzzles: This puzzle was among the shortest of Spelling Bees ever. Of the 2,255 Bees that had been offered as of July 4, 2024, there had been only one Bee with 16 words, two with 17 words, and six with 18 words, including the Bee of July 4. (Most Bees have, on average, 40-45 words.)
2 – First time for center letter J: This puzzle was the first time in Spelling Bee history that J had been selected as the center letter.
3 – Unique solution set: All the words in the solution set (shown below) started with the same letter (J) and that one letter was also the center letter (J). This may have been the only time in Bee history that this set of conditions coincided.
4 – More than half the solution set were new words: Ten new words made their Spelling Bee débuts on July 4, which meant that more than half the words in the solution set (10 of 18) were new. This is very rare, and can occur only in a very short game, and one in which the center letter is rarely used. (See report about the Bee of 2023-11-17, HERE.) The ten new words, all of which began with J, increased the number of Bee words that begin with J from 59 to 69, an instant increase of 17%.
1 – One of the shortest Bee puzzles: This puzzle was among the shortest of Spelling Bees ever. Of the 2,255 Bees that had been offered as of July 4, 2024, there had been only one Bee with 16 words, two with 17 words, and six with 18 words, including the Bee of July 4. (Most Bees have, on average, 40-45 words.)
2 – First time for center letter J: This puzzle was the first time in Spelling Bee history that J had been selected as the center letter.
3 – Unique solution set: All the words in the solution set (shown below) started with the same letter (J) and that one letter was also the center letter (J). This may have been the only time in Bee history that this set of conditions coincided.
4 – More than half the solution set were new words: Ten new words made their Spelling Bee débuts on July 4, which meant that more than half the words in the solution set (10 of 18) were new. This is very rare, and can occur only in a very short game, and one in which the center letter is rarely used. (See report about the Bee of 2023-11-17, HERE.) The ten new words, all of which began with J, increased the number of Bee words that begin with J from 59 to 69, an instant increase of 17%.
SOLUTION SET FOR SPELLING BEE 2024-07-04JIGGINGJIGGLINGJIGGLYJIGGYJILLIONJINGLINGJINGLYJINGOJINNJINNIJOGGINGJOGGLINGJOINJOININGJOLLILYJOLLYJOLLYINGJOYING
The Spelling Bee of 2024-03-25: The solution word "BINGO" was spelled out on the official Hints page
The Spelling Bee of March 25, 2024 was unique for a very interesting reason.
First, some context.
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.
As an English word, BINGO appears in the Spelling Bee from time to time.
On March 25, for the first time in Spelling Bee history, the word “BINGO” appeared in a Spelling Bee puzzle that happened to be “BINGO” puzzle. The word had appeared in six Bees before that date, but none of those earlier puzzles had been a BINGO puzzle. The puzzle data from the Hints page for March 25, 2024 is shown at right.
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.)
First, some context.
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.
As an English word, BINGO appears in the Spelling Bee from time to time.
On March 25, for the first time in Spelling Bee history, the word “BINGO” appeared in a Spelling Bee puzzle that happened to be “BINGO” puzzle. The word had appeared in six Bees before that date, but none of those earlier puzzles had been a BINGO puzzle. The puzzle data from the Hints page for March 25, 2024 is shown at right.
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.)
The Spelling Bee of 2023-11-17: Center letter Q and just 19 words
With center letter Q and just 19 words, the Spelling Bee puzzle of 2023-11-17 was among the most interesting in Bee history. Here’s why:
1 – One of the shortest Bee puzzles: Of the 2,020 Spelling Bee puzzles that had been offered as of November 17, 2023, there had been only six Bees with 19 words (including the November 17 puzzle), five with 18 words, two with 17 words, and one with just 16 words. Most Bees have, on average, 40-45 words.)
2 – More than half the solution set were new words: Ten new words made their Spelling Bee débuts in this puzzle, which meant that more than half the words in the solution set (10 of 19) were new. This would be most likely to occur in a very short game.
3 – First time for center letter Q: This puzzle was the first time in Bee history that Q had been selected as the center letter, and that caused a little ripple deep within the Bee lexicon. Here’s why: It is often the case that a preponderance of words in the solution set will begin with the center letter (especially when the center letter is a consonant). That was true yesterday, with 14 of the 19 words beginning with Q, including five of the ten début words. Here’s the ripple: Before this puzzle, the Bee lexicon contained only 31 words that begin with Q. The five new Q words in the November 17 puzzle brought that total to 36, an instant increase of 14%.
1 – One of the shortest Bee puzzles: Of the 2,020 Spelling Bee puzzles that had been offered as of November 17, 2023, there had been only six Bees with 19 words (including the November 17 puzzle), five with 18 words, two with 17 words, and one with just 16 words. Most Bees have, on average, 40-45 words.)
2 – More than half the solution set were new words: Ten new words made their Spelling Bee débuts in this puzzle, which meant that more than half the words in the solution set (10 of 19) were new. This would be most likely to occur in a very short game.
3 – First time for center letter Q: This puzzle was the first time in Bee history that Q had been selected as the center letter, and that caused a little ripple deep within the Bee lexicon. Here’s why: It is often the case that a preponderance of words in the solution set will begin with the center letter (especially when the center letter is a consonant). That was true yesterday, with 14 of the 19 words beginning with Q, including five of the ten début words. Here’s the ripple: Before this puzzle, the Bee lexicon contained only 31 words that begin with Q. The five new Q words in the November 17 puzzle brought that total to 36, an instant increase of 14%.
SOLUTION SET FOR SPELLING BEE 2023-11-17EQUINEETIQUETTENETIQUETTEQUEENQUEENINGQUEUEQUEUEINGQUEUINGQUIETQUIETENQUIETINGQUININEQUINTQUINTETQUITQUITEQUITTINGUNIQUEUNQUIET
Spelling Bee of 2024-02-01: No answers began with the center letter
In the Spelling Bee of February 1, 2024, when the letter set was U B D E H L M (pangram HUMBLED), none of the words in the solution set began with the center letter U.
In the Spelling Bee forum that day, a player asked a very interesting question: "Isn't unusual to have a central letter and no word starting with that?"
We were intrigued, and LexiConnexxions posed the question to the one person we know who could provide the answer: Bill Shunn, the genius who created and maintains the amazing www.sbsolver.com site. Bill very graciously did the calculations and provided this answer to LexiConnexxions:
"This was a tricky query to compose, but it turns out that situation is not as uncommon as all that. It has happened 66 times [of 2,099 puzzles], which is a little more than 3% of all puzzles. Rare, but not ridiculously rare, like the case where the solution set contains no four-letter words (one example, 2021-10-18).* Incidentally, there are 93 cases where only one word begins with the center letter."
In the Spelling Bee forum that day, a player asked a very interesting question: "Isn't unusual to have a central letter and no word starting with that?"
We were intrigued, and LexiConnexxions posed the question to the one person we know who could provide the answer: Bill Shunn, the genius who created and maintains the amazing www.sbsolver.com site. Bill very graciously did the calculations and provided this answer to LexiConnexxions:
"This was a tricky query to compose, but it turns out that situation is not as uncommon as all that. It has happened 66 times [of 2,099 puzzles], which is a little more than 3% of all puzzles. Rare, but not ridiculously rare, like the case where the solution set contains no four-letter words (one example, 2021-10-18).* Incidentally, there are 93 cases where only one word begins with the center letter."
Spelling Bee of 2022-02-11: Unique inclusion of Pairs of Variant Spellings
The Spelling Bee of February 11, 2022 was interesting for a unique reason.
The Spelling Bee lexicon has long included these pairs of related words:
AMEBA / AMEBAE AMOEBA / AMOEBAE
These are the American and British spellings, respectively, of the singular and plural forms of the famiiar single-celled organism.
Each of these words has appeared in the Spelling Bee pretty often, always in pairs, of course. But only once have all four of these related words appeared in the same Bee puzzle; that was on February 11, 2022.
The Spelling Bee lexicon has long included these pairs of related words:
AMEBA / AMEBAE AMOEBA / AMOEBAE
These are the American and British spellings, respectively, of the singular and plural forms of the famiiar single-celled organism.
Each of these words has appeared in the Spelling Bee pretty often, always in pairs, of course. But only once have all four of these related words appeared in the same Bee puzzle; that was on February 11, 2022.