Friday, February 20, 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: 100

Number of Answers: 28

Points Needed for Genius: 70

Genius requires between 11 and 25 words. You need at least a 6-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 65% 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 100 was in the 13th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there was a score this low was on January 30, 2026.
The highest score ever was 537 on January 22, 2021.
The lowest score ever was 47 on March 27, 2023.

This puzzle's 28 possible answers rank it in the 19th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there were fewer answers than this was on February 11, 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 6-letter word for genius.
The last time this happened was on February 18, 2026.

Today's puzzle has an average word length of 4.8.
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 231
  • loll 214
  • toot 210
  • nana 192
  • naan 192
  • tilt 152
  • till 152
  • lilt 152
  • nene 150
  • tint 145
  • mamma 145
  • mama 145
  • toon 138
  • onto 138
  • onion 138
  • acai 137
  • acacia 137
  • anon 131
  • anal 130
  • olio 124
  • papa 123
  • dodo 123
  • tact 122
  • baba 121
  • lulu 120
  • lull 120
  • poop 119
  • booboo 118
  • boob 118
  • mitt 115
  • moon 114
  • mono 114
  • cocci 114
  • tartar 113
  • tart 113
  • ratatat 113
  • calla 113
  • call 113
  • tutu 112
  • tattoo 112
  • loon 112
  • attar 112
  • ally 110
  • allay 110
  • tatty 109
  • momma 108
  • meme 108
  • ammo 108
  • roar 106
  • peep 105


How long are words in the Bee?

There have been 113,883 answers ever accepted in the Bee - with 10,917 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*:

  • aglu
  • alula
  • audad
  • auld
  • babu
  • babul
  • blub
  • bubal
  • bubby
  • bubu
  • bulbul
  • bulla
  • dauby
  • duad
  • duddy
  • gaud
  • gullably
  • yaud
  • yauld
  • yuga

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

baud

noun
  1. A unit of data transmission symbol rate; the number of signalling events per second.
  2. Bps (bits per second), regardless of how many bits are represented by each symbol.

bubba

noun
  1. Brother; used as term of familiar address.
  2. A working-class white male from the southern US, stereotyped as loutish.

bubbly

noun
  1. Champagne.
adjective
  1. Full of bubbles.
  2. Cheerful, lively.
  3. Having the characteristics of bubbles.
  4. Having the characteristics of economic bubbles.

buddy

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A friend or casual acquaintance.
  2. A partner for a particular activity.
  3. An informal and friendly address to a stranger; a friendly (or occasionally antagonistic) placeholder name for a person one does not know.
verb
  1. To assign a buddy, or partner, to.

Etymology 2

adjective
  1. Resembling a bud.

buggy

noun
  1. A small horse-drawn cart.
  2. A small motor vehicle, such as a dune buggy.
  3. A hearse.
  4. A pushchair; a stroller.
  5. A shopping cart or trolley.
adjective
  1. Infested with insects
  2. Containing programming errors
  3. Resembling an insect
  4. Crazy; bughouse

bulb

noun
  1. Any solid object rounded at one end and tapering on the other, possibly attached to a larger object at the tapered end.
  2. A light bulb.
  3. The bulb-shaped root portion of a plant such as a tulip, from which the rest of the plant may be regrown.
  4. A bulbous protuberance at the forefoot of certain vessels to reduce turbulence.
  5. The medulla oblongata.
verb
  1. To take the shape of a bulb; to swell.

bulgy

adjective
  1. Having one or more bulges; bulging

bull

Etymology 1

noun
  1. An adult male of domesticated cattle or oxen.
  2. A male of domesticated cattle or oxen of any age.
  3. Any adult male bovine.
  4. An adult male of certain large mammals, such as whales, elephants, camels and seals.
  5. A large, strong man.
  6. An investor who buys (commodities or securities) in anticipation of a rise in prices.
  7. A policeman.
  8. A crown coin; its value, 5 shillings.
  9. (Philadelphia) A man.
  10. A man who has sex with another man's wife or girlfriend with the consent of both.
  11. A drink made by pouring water into a cask that previously held liquor.
adjective
  1. Large and strong, like a bull.
  2. (of large mammals) adult male
  3. Of a market in which prices are rising (compare bear)
  4. Stupid
noun
  1. The centre of a target, inside the inner and magpie.
  2. A shot which hits the centre of a target.
  3. The two central rings on a dartboard.
  4. A hard striped peppermint-flavoured boiled sweet.
  5. Thick glass set into the side of a ship to let in light.
  6. A hand-cancelled postmark issued by a counter clerk at a post office, typically done on a receipt for proof of mailing.
  7. The central part of a crown glass disk, with concentric ripple effect.
  8. A convex glass lens which is placed in front of a lamp to concentrate the light so as to make it more conspicuous as a signal; also the lantern itself.
  9. A £50 banknote.
  10. Any of the first postage stamps produced in Brazil from 1843.
noun
  1. The faeces of a bull.
  2. False or exaggerated statements made to impress and deceive the listener rather than inform; nonsense.
  3. A card game in which the object is to bluff about cards laid down and to determine when one's opponents are bluffing.
  4. An object of frustration and/or disgust, often caused by a perceived deception.
  5. Statements that may be true but misleading nonetheless.
  6. Statements made without any particular reference to their truth value.

Etymology 2

verb
  1. To force oneself (in a particular direction).
  2. To lie, to tell untruths.
  3. To be in heat; to manifest sexual desire as cows do.
  4. To polish boots to a high shine.
  5. To endeavour to raise the market price of.
  6. To endeavour to raise prices in.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. A papal bull, an official document or edict from the Pope.
  2. A seal affixed to a document, especially a document from the Pope.
verb
  1. (17th century) to publish in a Papal bull

Etymology 4

noun
  1. A lie.
  2. Nonsense.
verb
  1. To mock; to cheat.

Etymology 5

noun
  1. (16th century) A bubble.

bully

noun
  1. A person who is intentionally, physically, or emotionally cruel to others; especially to those who are weaker or have less power or privilege.
  2. A noisy, blustering fellow, more insolent than courageous; one who is threatening and quarrelsome; an insolent, tyrannical fellow.
  3. A hired thug.
  4. A sex worker’s minder.
  5. Bully beef.
  6. A brisk, dashing fellow.
  7. The small scrum in the Eton College field game.
  8. Various small freshwater or brackishwater fish of the family Eleotridae; sleeper goby.
  9. An (eldest) brother; a fellow workman; comrade
  10. A companion; mate (male or female).
  11. A darling, sweetheart (male or female).
  12. A standoff between two players from the opposing teams, who repeatedly hit each other's hockey sticks and then attempt to acquire the ball, as a method of resuming the game in certain circumstances.
  13. A miner's hammer.
verb
  1. To intimidate (someone) as a bully.
  2. To act aggressively towards.
adjective
  1. Very good.
  2. Jovial and blustering.
interjection
  1. (often followed by for) Well done!

daub

noun
  1. Excrement or clay used as a bonding material in construction.
  2. A soft coating of mud, plaster etc.
  3. A crude or amateurish painting.
verb
  1. To apply (something) to a surface in hasty or crude strokes.
  2. To paint (a picture, etc.) in a coarse or unskilful manner.
  3. To cover with a specious or deceitful exterior; to disguise; to conceal.
  4. To flatter excessively or grossly.
  5. To put on without taste; to deck gaudily.

dual

noun
  1. Of an item that is one of a pair, the other item in the pair.
  2. Of a regular polyhedron with V vertices and F faces, the regular polyhedron having F vertices and V faces.
  3. (grammar) dual number The grammatical number of a noun marking two of something (as in singular, dual, plural), sometimes referring to two of anything (a couple of, exactly two of), or a chirality-marked pair (as in left and right, as with gloves or shoes) or in some languages as a discourse marker, "between you and me". A few languages display trial number.
  4. Of a vector in an inner product space, the linear functional corresponding to taking the inner product with that vector. The set of all duals is a vector space called the dual space.
verb
  1. To convert from single to dual; specifically, to convert a single-carriageway road to a dual carriageway.
adjective
  1. Exhibiting duality; characterized by having two (usually equivalent) components.
  2. Acting as a counterpart.
  3. Double.
  4. (grammar) Pertaining to grammatical number (as in singular and plural), referring to two of something, such as a pair of shoes, in the context of the singular, plural and, in some languages, trial grammatical number.
  5. Being the space of all linear functionals of (some other space).
  6. Being the dual of some other category; containing the same objects but with source and target reversed for all morphisms.

dually

No Definition Found.

dull

verb
  1. To render dull; to remove or blunt an edge or something that was sharp.
  2. To soften, moderate or blunt; to make dull, stupid, or sluggish; to stupefy.
  3. To lose a sharp edge; to become dull.
  4. To render dim or obscure; to sully; to tarnish.
adjective
  1. Lacking the ability to cut easily; not sharp.
  2. Boring; not exciting or interesting.
  3. Not shiny; having a matte finish or no particular luster or brightness.
  4. Not bright or intelligent; stupid; having slow understanding.
  5. Sluggish, listless.
  6. Cloudy, overcast.
  7. Insensible; unfeeling.
  8. Heavy; lifeless; inert.
  9. (of pain etc) Not intense; felt indistinctly or only slightly.
  10. (of a noise or sound) Not clear, muffled.

dully

adverb
  1. In a dull manner; without liveliness; without lustre.

duly

adverb
  1. In a due, fit, or becoming manner; as it ought to be; properly.
  2. Regularly; at the proper time.

gaudy

Etymology 1

noun
  1. One of the large beads in the rosary at which the paternoster is recited.
adjective
  1. Very showy or ornamented, now especially when excessive, or in a tasteless or vulgar manner
  2. Fun; merry; festive

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A reunion held by one of the colleges of the University of Oxford for alumni, normally held during the summer vacations.

glug

noun
  1. The sound made when a significant amount of liquid is poured suddenly out of something, such as a jug or bottle.
  2. The amount of liquid issued when the "glug" sound is heard.
verb
  1. To flow in noisy bursts.
  2. To quickly swallow liquid.

gulag

noun
  1. A prison camp.
  2. The system of all Soviet prison and/or labor camps in use during the Stalinist period.
verb
  1. To force into this prison or a similar system.

gull

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A seabird of the genus Larus or of the family Laridae.
  2. Any of various pierid butterflies of the genus Cepora.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A cheating trick; a fraud.
  2. One easily cheated; a dupe.
  3. (Oxford University slang) A swindler or trickster.
verb
  1. To deceive or cheat.
  2. To mislead.
  3. To trick and defraud.

gully

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A trench, ravine or narrow channel which was worn by water flow, especially on a hillside.
  2. A small valley.
  3. A drop kerb.
  4. A road drain.
  5. A fielding position on the off side about 30 degrees behind square, between the slips and point; a fielder in such a position
  6. A grooved iron rail or tram plate.
verb
  1. To flow noisily.
  2. To wear away into a gully or gullies.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. (northern UK) A large knife.

ladybug

noun
  1. Any of the Coccinellidae family of beetles, typically having a round shape and red or yellow spotted elytra.

laud

noun
  1. Praise or glorification.
  2. Hymn of praise.
  3. (in the plural, also Lauds) A prayer service following matins.
verb
  1. To praise, to glorify

laudably

No Definition Found.

luau

noun
  1. An elaborate Hawaiian feast featuring traditional foods and entertainment.

lull

noun
  1. A period of rest or soothing.
  2. A period of reduced activity; a respite
  3. A period without waves or wind.
  4. An extended pause between sets of waves.
verb
  1. To cause to rest by soothing influences; to compose; to calm
  2. To become gradually calm; to subside; to cease or abate.

lullaby

noun
  1. A cradlesong, a soothing song to calm children or lull them to sleep.
verb
  1. To sing a lullaby to.

lulu

noun
  1. A remarkable person, object or idea.
  2. A very attractive or alluring person.
  3. A very bad mistake or error.
  4. A fixed allowance paid to a legislator in lieu of reimbursement for actual expenses.

ugly

noun
  1. Ugliness.
  2. An ugly person or thing.
  3. A shade for the face, projecting from a bonnet.
verb
  1. To make ugly (sometimes with up).
adjective
  1. Displeasing to the eye; not aesthetically pleasing.
  2. Displeasing to the ear or some other sense.
  3. Offensive to one's sensibilities or morality.
  4. Ill-natured; crossgrained; quarrelsome.
  5. Unpleasant; disagreeable; likely to cause trouble or loss.