Tuesday, July 14, 2026

Answers to yesterday's Bee

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The official answers for today's puzzle are:

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Number of Pangrams: 1

Maximum Puzzle Score: 125

Number of Answers: 36

Points Needed for Genius: 88

Genius requires between 13 and 33 words. You need at least a 7-letter word to reach genius. If you don't get the pangram, you need 81% of the total points to reach genius. If you get the pangram, you only need 66% of the remaining points to reach genius.

Other days with this pangram:

The button below will reveal a chart with the number of words by each letter. Red bars indicate that there is a pangram(s) starting with that letter.


How does this puzzle compare to other puzzles?

Today's score of 125 was in the 25th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there was a score this low was on July 08, 2026.
The highest score ever was 537 on January 22, 2021.
The lowest score ever was 47 on March 27, 2023.

This puzzle's 36 possible answers rank it in the 40th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there were fewer answers than this was on July 12, 2026.
The highest number of answers was 81 on June 08, 2019.
The lowest number of answers was 16 on March 27, 2023.

It takes a 7-letter word for genius.
The last time this happened was on July 13, 2026.

Today's puzzle has an average word length of 4.9.
For all Bees, the average word length has been 5.3.



Haven't I seen these letters before?

Hover over a letter to see its first and most recent appearance in the Bee!



Haven't I seen these words before?

The most common words in the Bee are:

  • noon 244
  • loll 226
  • toot 219
  • nana 204
  • naan 204
  • tilt 159
  • till 159
  • lilt 159
  • nene 158
  • mamma 158
  • mama 158
  • tint 153
  • onion 150
  • acai 148
  • acacia 148
  • toon 147
  • onto 147
  • olio 137
  • anon 137
  • anal 136
  • papa 129
  • tact 128
  • baba 127
  • lulu 125
  • lull 125
  • dodo 125
  • mitt 122
  • loon 122
  • poop 121
  • calla 121
  • call 121
  • booboo 120
  • boob 120
  • cocci 119
  • moon 118
  • mono 118
  • tattoo 117
  • tartar 117
  • tart 117
  • ratatat 117
  • attar 116
  • tutu 115
  • ally 114
  • allay 114
  • cancan 113
  • aria 113
  • momma 112
  • ammo 112
  • tatty 111
  • roar 111


How long are words in the Bee?

There have been 120,298 answers ever accepted in the Bee - with 11,056 unique words.
Below are the distributions of the lengths of these words.



Valid dictionary words not in today's official answers

You may be wondering why these words aren't here*:

  • clit
  • clitic
  • clitoric
  • cloot
  • colicroot
  • colitic
  • crit
  • ictic
  • illitic
  • iritic
  • lictor
  • lirot
  • litotic
  • loti
  • lotic
  • loto
  • ocotillo
  • octroi
  • oolitic
  • otic
  • otitic
  • otto
  • rotl
  • roto
  • tictoc
  • tiltrotor
  • tirl
  • tiro
  • titi
  • toco
  • toit
  • tolt
  • torc
  • torot
  • torr
  • tricrotic
  • triol
  • vitric
  • volti

*Because the New York Times considers them obscure or offensive.

citric

adjective
  1. Of, pertaining to, or derived from, the citron or lemon.

clot

noun
  1. A thrombus, solidified mass of blood.
  2. A solidified mass of any liquid.
  3. A silly person.
verb
  1. To form a clot or mass.
  2. To cause to clot or form into a mass.

colt

noun
  1. A young male horse.
  2. A young crane (bird).
  3. A youthful or inexperienced person; a novice.
  4. A short piece of rope once used by petty officers as an instrument of punishment.
  5. A young camel or donkey.
verb
  1. To horse; to get with young.
  2. To befool.
  3. To frisk or frolic like a colt; to act licentiously or wantonly.

coot

noun
  1. Any of various aquatic birds of the genus Fulica that are mainly black with a prominent frontal shield on the forehead.
  2. A foolish or eccentric fellow
  3. (with the) A success; something excellent.
  4. Body louse (Pediculus humanus).

critic

noun
  1. A person who appraises the works of others.
  2. A specialist in judging works of art.
  3. One who criticizes; a person who finds fault.
  4. An opponent.
verb
  1. To criticise.
noun
  1. The art of criticism.
  2. An essay in which another piece of work is criticised, reviewed, etc.
  3. A point made to criticize something.
  4. A critic; one who criticises.

illicit

noun
  1. A banned or unlawful item.
adjective
  1. Not approved by law, but not invalid.
  2. Breaking social norms.
  3. Unlawful.

licit

adjective
  1. Not forbidden by formal or informal rules.
  2. Explicitly established or constituted by law.

lilt

noun
  1. Animated, brisk motion; spirited rhythm; sprightliness.
  2. A lively song or dance; a cheerful tune.
  3. A cheerful or melodious accent when speaking.
verb
  1. To do something rhythmically, with animation and quickness, usually of music.
  2. To sing cheerfully, especially in Gaelic.
  3. To utter with spirit, animation, or gaiety; to sing with spirit and liveliness.

loot

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A kind of scoop or ladle, chiefly used to remove the scum from brine-pans in saltworks.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. The act of plundering.
  2. Plunder, booty, especially from a ransacked city.
  3. Any prize or profit received for free, especially Christmas presents
  4. Items dropped by defeated enemies.
verb
  1. To steal, especially as part of war, riot or other group violence.
  2. To steal from.
  3. To examine the corpse of a fallen enemy for loot.

lotto

noun
  1. A game of chance similar to bingo
  2. A lottery

riot

noun
  1. Wanton or unrestrained behavior; uproar; tumult.
  2. The tumultuous disturbance of the public peace by an unlawful assembly of three or more persons in the execution of some private object.
  3. A wide and unconstrained variety.
  4. Excessive and expensive feasting; wild and loose festivity; revelry.
verb
  1. To create or take part in a riot; to raise an uproar or sedition.
  2. To act in an unrestrained or wanton manner; to indulge in excess of feasting, luxury, etc.
  3. To cause to riot; to throw into a tumult.
  4. To annoy.

root

Etymology 1

noun
  1. The part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors and supports the plant body, absorbs and stores water and nutrients, and in some plants is able to perform vegetative reproduction.
  2. A root vegetable.
  3. The part of a tooth extending into the bone holding the tooth in place.
  4. The part of a hair under the skin that holds the hair in place.
  5. The part of a hair near the skin that has not been dyed, permed, or otherwise treated.
  6. The primary source; origin.
  7. Of a number or expression, a number which, when raised to a specified power, yields the specified number or expression.
  8. A square root (understood if no power is specified; in which case, “the root of” is often abbreviated to “root”).
  9. A zero (of an equation).
  10. The single node of a tree that has no parent.
  11. The primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Inflectional stems often derive from roots.
  12. (philology) A word from which another word or words are derived.
  13. The fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed.
  14. The lowest place, position, or part.
  15. In UNIX terminology, the first user account with complete access to the operating system and its configuration, found at the root of the directory structure; the person who manages accounts on a UNIX system.
  16. The highest directory of a directory structure which may contain both files and subdirectories.
  17. A penis, especially the base of a penis.
verb
  1. To grow roots; to enter the earth, as roots; to take root and begin to grow.
  2. To prepare, oversee, or otherwise cause the rooting of cuttings
  3. To be firmly fixed; to be established.
  4. To get root or priviledged access on a computer system or mobile phone, often through bypassing some security mechanism.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. An act of sexual intercourse.
  2. A sexual partner.
verb
  1. To turn up or dig with the snout.
  2. (by extension) To seek favour or advancement by low arts or grovelling servility; to fawn.
  3. To rummage; to search as if by digging in soil.
  4. To root out; to abolish.
  5. To have sexual intercourse.

Etymology 3

verb
  1. (with "for" or "on") To cheer (on); to show support (for) and hope for the success of. (See root for.)

roti

noun
  1. A kind of unleavened flatbread commonly consumed in South Asia and the Caribbean.

rotor

noun
  1. A rotating part of a mechanical device, for example in an electric motor, generator, alternator or pump.
  2. The wing of a helicopter or similar aircraft.
  3. A quantity having magnitude, direction and position.

rototill

verb
  1. To break up and turn soil using a rototiller.
  2. To make extensive and pervasive changes to a piece of code without altering its functionality.

till

Etymology 1

preposition
  1. Until; to, up to; as late as (a given time).
  2. To, up to (physically).
  3. To make it possible that.
conjunction
  1. Until, until the time that.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A cash register.
  2. A removable box within a cash register containing the money.
  3. The contents of a cash register, for example at the beginning or end of the day or of a cashier's shift.
  4. A tray or drawer in a chest.

Etymology 3

verb
  1. To develop so as to improve or prepare for usage; to cultivate (said of knowledge, virtue, mind etc.).
  2. To work or cultivate or plough (soil); to prepare for growing vegetation and crops.
  3. To cultivate soil.
  4. To prepare; to get.

Etymology 4

noun
  1. Glacial drift consisting of a mixture of clay, sand, pebbles and boulders
  2. Manure or other material used to fertilize land

Etymology 5

noun
  1. A vetch; a tare.

tilt

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A slope or inclination.
  2. The inclination of part of the body, such as backbone, pelvis, head, etc.
  3. The controlled vertical movement of a camera, or a device to achieve this.
  4. A jousting contest.
  5. An attempt at something, such as a tilt at public office.
  6. A thrust, as with a lance.
  7. A tilt hammer.
verb
  1. To slope or incline (something); to slant.
  2. (jousting) To charge (at someone) with a lance.
  3. To be at an angle.
  4. To point or thrust a weapon at.
  5. To point or thrust (a weapon).
  6. To forge (something) with a tilt hammer.
  7. To play worse than usual (often as a result of previous bad luck or losses).
  8. (of a machine) To intentionally let the ball fall down to the drain by disabling flippers and most targets, done as a punishment to the player when the machine is nudged too violently or frequently.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A canvas covering for carts, boats, etc.
  2. Any covering overhead; especially, a tent.
verb
  1. To cover with a tilt, or awning.

toil

noun
  1. Labour, work, especially of a grueling nature.
  2. Trouble, strife.
  3. (usually in plural) A net or snare; any thread, web, or string spread for taking prey.
verb
  1. To labour; work.
  2. To struggle.
  3. To work (something); often with out.
  4. To weary through excessive labour.

toll

Etymology 1

noun
  1. Loss or damage incurred through a disaster.
  2. A fee paid for some liberty or privilege, particularly for the privilege of passing over a bridge or on a highway, or for that of vending goods in a fair, market, etc.
  3. A fee for using any kind of material processing service.
  4. A tollbooth.
  5. A liberty to buy and sell within the bounds of a manor.
  6. A portion of grain taken by a miller as a compensation for grinding.
verb
  1. To impose a fee for the use of.
  2. To levy a toll on (someone or something).
  3. To take as a toll.
  4. To pay a toll or tallage.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. The act or sound of tolling
verb
  1. To ring (a bell) slowly and repeatedly.
  2. To summon by ringing a bell.
  3. To announce by tolling.

Etymology 3

verb
  1. To draw; pull; tug; drag.
  2. To tear in pieces.
  3. To draw; entice; invite; allure.
  4. To lure with bait; tole (especially, fish and animals).

Etymology 4

verb
  1. To take away; to vacate; to annul.
  2. To suspend.

tool

noun
  1. A mechanical device intended to make a task easier.
  2. Equipment used in a profession, e.g., tools of the trade.
  3. Something to perform an operation; an instrument; a means.
  4. A piece of software used to develop software or hardware, or to perform low-level operations.
  5. A person or group which is used or controlled, usually unwittingly, by another person or group.
  6. Penis.
  7. (by extension) An obnoxious or uptight person.
verb
  1. To work on or shape with tools, e.g., hand-tooled leather.
  2. To equip with tools.
  3. To work very hard.
  4. To put down another person (possibly in a subtle, hidden way), and in that way to use him or her to meet a goal.
  5. To intentionally attack the ball so that it deflects off a blocker out of bounds.
  6. To drive (a coach or other vehicle).
  7. To carry or convey in a coach or other vehicle.
  8. To travel in a vehicle; to ride or drive.

toot

Etymology 1

noun
  1. The noise of a horn or whistle.
  2. (by extension) A fart; flatus.
  3. Cocaine.
  4. A portion of cocaine that a person snorts.
  5. A spree of drunkness.
  6. (pronounced /tʊt/) Rubbish; tat.
  7. A message on the social networking software Mastodon.
verb
  1. To stand out, or be prominent.
  2. To peep; to look narrowly.
  3. To see; to spy.
  4. To flatulate.
  5. To make the sound of a horn or whistle.
  6. To cause a horn or whistle to make its sound.
  7. To go on a drinking binge.
  8. To snort (a recreational drug).
  9. To post a message on a Mastodon instance (a self-hosted version of the networking software).

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A toilet.

tori

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A topological space which is a product of two circles.
  2. The standard representation of such a space in 3-dimensional Euclidean space: a shape consisting of a ring with a circular cross-section: the shape of an inner tube or hollow doughnut.
  3. (in combination, n-torus, 4-torus, etc.) The product of the specified number of circles.
  4. A molding which projects at the base of a column and above the plinth.
  5. The end of the peduncle or flower stalk to which the floral parts (or in the Asteraceae, the florets of a flower head) are attached; receptacle, thalamus.
  6. A rounded ridge, especially one on the occipital bone.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. One who executes a technique against the training partner, or uke.

toric

adjective
  1. Pertaining to or shaped like a torus, or a section of a torus; toroidal.

torii

noun
  1. A traditional Japanese gate at Shinto shrines, symbolically marking the transition from the profane to the sacred.

toro

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A traditional Japanese lantern.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. Rapanea salicina, a species of shrub or small tree native to New Zealand.

tort

Etymology 1

noun
  1. An injury or wrong.
  2. A wrongful act, whether intentional or negligent, which causes an injury and can be remedied in civil court, usually through the awarding of damages.
  3. (only in the plural torts) Tort law (the area of law dealing with such wrongful acts).

Etymology 2

adjective
  1. Tart; sharp.

Etymology 3

adjective
  1. Stretched tight; taut.

Etymology 4

noun
  1. A tortoise.

Etymology 5

noun
  1. A tortoiseshell (animal with coloured markings on fur).

tricolor

adjective
  1. Having three colors.
noun
  1. A flag consisting of three stripes that are either vertical or horizontal; all of equal size, and of a different colour each.

tricot

noun
  1. A soft knit fabric.

trill

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A rapid alternation between an indicated note and the one above it, in musical notation usually indicated with the letters tr written above the staff.
  2. A type of consonantal sound that is produced by vibrations of the tongue against the place of articulation: for example, Spanish rr.
  3. A tremulous high-pitched vocal sound produced by cats.
verb
  1. To create a trill sound; to utter trills or a trill; to play or sing in tremulous vibrations of sound; to have a trembling sound; to quaver.
  2. To impart the quality of a trill to; to utter as, or with, a trill.

Etymology 2

verb
  1. To trickle.

Etymology 3

verb
  1. To twirl.

trio

noun
  1. A group of three people or things.
  2. A group of three musicians.
  3. A piece of music written for three musicians.
  4. A passage in the middle of a minuet, frequently in a different key.
  5. Any cocktail made with a spirit, a liqueur, and a creamy ingredient.

troll

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A supernatural being of varying size, now especially a grotesque humanoid creature living in caves or hills or under bridges.
  2. An ugly person of either sex, especially one seeking sexual experiences.
  3. Optical ejections from the top of the electrically active core regions of thunderstorms that are red in color that seem to occur after tendrils of vigorous sprites extend downward toward the cloud tops.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. An instance of trolling, especially, in fishing, the trailing of a baited line.
  2. A person who provokes others (chiefly on the Internet) for their own personal amusement or to cause disruption.
verb
  1. To saunter.
  2. To trundle, to roll from side to side.
  3. To draw someone or something out, to entice, to lure as if with trailing bait.
  4. (by extension) To fish using a line and bait or lures trailed behind a boat similarly to trawling; to lure fish with bait.
  5. To angle for with a trolling line, or with a hook drawn along the surface of the water; hence, to allure.
  6. To fish in; to try to catch fish from.
  7. To stroll about in order to find a sexual partner.
  8. (to post inflammatory material so as) to attempt to lure others into combative argument for purposes of personal entertainment and/or gratuitous disruption, especially in an online community or discussion
  9. (by extension) To incite anger (including outside of an Internet context); to provoke, harass or annoy.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. The act of moving round; routine; repetition.
  2. A song whose parts are sung in succession; a catch; a round.
  3. A trolley.
verb
  1. To move circularly; to roll; to turn.
  2. To send about; to circulate, as a vessel in drinking.
  3. To sing the parts of in succession, as of a round, a catch, and the like; also, to sing loudly, freely or in a carefree way.

trot

Etymology 1

noun
  1. Any of several animals related to Equus ferus caballus.
  2. Equipment with legs.
  3. Type of equipment.
  4. A mass of earthy matter, or rock of the same character as the wall rock, occurring in the course of a vein, as of coal or ore; hence, to take horse (said of a vein) is to divide into branches for a distance.
  5. The sedative, antidepressant, and anxiolytic drug morphine, chiefly when used illicitly.
  6. An informal variant of basketball in which players match shots made by their opponent(s), each miss adding a letter to the word "horse", with 5 misses spelling the whole word and eliminating a player, until only the winner is left. Also HORSE, H-O-R-S-E or H.O.R.S.E. (see Variations of basketball#H-O-R-S-E).
  7. (among students) A translation or other illegitimate aid in study or examination.
  8. (among students) horseplay; tomfoolery
noun
  1. Heroin (drug).
noun
  1. An ugly old woman, a hag.
  2. (chiefly of horses) A gait of a four-legged animal between walk and canter, a diagonal gait (in which diagonally opposite pairs of legs move together).
  3. A gait of a person or animal faster than a walk but slower than a run.
  4. A brisk journey or progression.
  5. A toddler.
  6. A young animal.
  7. A moderately rapid dance.
  8. A succession of heads thrown in a game of two-up.
  9. (with "good" or "bad") A run of luck or fortune.
  10. (as 'the trots') Diarrhoea.
verb
  1. To move along briskly; specifically, to move at a pace between a walk and a run.
  2. (of a horse) To move at a gait between a walk and a canter.
  3. To cause to move, as a horse or other animal, in the pace called a trot; to cause to run without galloping or cantering.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A genre of Korean pop music employing repetitive rhythm and vocal inflections.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. A supporter of Trotskyism.

victor

noun
  1. The winner in a fight or contest.
  2. The letter V in the ICAO spelling alphabet.

vitriol

noun
  1. Sulphuric acid and various metal sulphates.
  2. (by extension) Bitterly abusive language.
verb
  1. To subject to bitter verbal abuse.
  2. To dip in dilute sulphuric acid; to pickle.
  3. To vitriolize.

vitriolic

adjective
  1. Of or pertaining to vitriol; derived from or resembling vitriol.
  2. Bitterly scathing, caustic.

volt

Etymology 1

noun
  1. In the International System of Units, the derived unit of electrical potential and electromotive force (voltage); the potential difference across a conductor when a current of one ampere uses one watt of power. Symbol: V

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A circular tread; a gait by which a horse going sideways round a centre makes two concentric tracks.
  2. A sudden movement to avoid a thrust.