Thursday, May 21, 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: 163

Number of Answers: 35

Points Needed for Genius: 114

Genius requires between 17 and 30 words. You need at least a 7-letter word to reach genius. If you don't get the pangram, you need 77% of the total points to reach genius. If you get the pangram, you only need 67% 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 163 was in the 45th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there was a score this low was on May 18, 2026.
The highest score ever was 537 on January 22, 2021.
The lowest score ever was 47 on March 27, 2023.

This puzzle's 35 possible answers rank it in the 38th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there were fewer answers than this was on May 18, 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 May 19, 2026.

Today's puzzle has an average word length of 5.4.
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 239
  • loll 220
  • toot 214
  • nana 199
  • naan 199
  • nene 158
  • tilt 156
  • till 156
  • lilt 156
  • mamma 152
  • mama 152
  • tint 149
  • onion 145
  • toon 144
  • onto 144
  • acai 142
  • acacia 142
  • anon 134
  • anal 134
  • olio 131
  • papa 127
  • tact 126
  • baba 126
  • lulu 125
  • lull 125
  • dodo 124
  • poop 120
  • booboo 120
  • boob 120
  • mitt 119
  • moon 118
  • mono 118
  • cocci 118
  • calla 118
  • call 118
  • loon 117
  • tartar 116
  • tart 116
  • ratatat 116
  • tattoo 115
  • attar 115
  • tutu 114
  • ally 113
  • allay 113
  • momma 111
  • aria 111
  • ammo 111
  • tatty 110
  • roar 109
  • meme 109


How long are words in the Bee?

There have been 118,087 answers ever accepted in the Bee - with 10,990 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*:

  • agee
  • agene
  • aggada
  • aggadah
  • agha
  • anga
  • chang
  • dagga
  • danged
  • degage
  • gach
  • gached
  • gaed
  • gaen
  • gaged
  • gane
  • gean
  • geed
  • genned
  • haggada
  • haggadah
  • hagged
  • naga
  • nagana

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

adage

noun
  1. An old saying which has obtained credit by long use
  2. An old saying which has been overused or considered a cliché; a trite maxim

aged

verb
  1. To cause to grow old; to impart the characteristics of age to.
  2. To postpone an action that would extinguish something, as a debt.
  3. To categorize by age.
  4. To grow aged; to become old; to show marks of age.
noun
  1. Old people, collectively.
adjective
  1. Old.
  2. (chiefly non-US) Having the age of.
  3. Having undergone the improving effects of time; matured.

agenda

noun
  1. A temporally organized plan for matters to be attended to.
  2. A list of matters to be taken up (as at a meeting).
  3. A notebook used to organize and maintain such plans or lists, an agenda book, an agenda planner.
  4. A hidden agenda.
  5. A ritual.
noun
  1. A task which ought to be done.

cadge

noun
  1. A circular frame on which cadgers carry hawks for sale.
verb
  1. To beg.
  2. To obtain something by wit or guile; to convince people to do something they might not normally do.
  3. To carry hawks and other birds of prey.
  4. To carry, as a burden.
  5. To hawk or peddle, as fish, poultry, etc.
  6. To intrude or live on another meanly; to beg.

cadged

verb
  1. To beg.
  2. To obtain something by wit or guile; to convince people to do something they might not normally do.
  3. To carry hawks and other birds of prey.
  4. To carry, as a burden.
  5. To hawk or peddle, as fish, poultry, etc.
  6. To intrude or live on another meanly; to beg.

cage

noun
  1. An enclosure made of bars, normally to hold animals.
  2. The passenger compartment of a lift.
  3. (water polo) The goal.
  4. An automobile.
  5. Something that hinders freedom.
  6. The area from which competitors throw a discus or hammer.
  7. An outer framework of timber, enclosing something within it.
  8. A skeleton frame to limit the motion of a loose piece, such as a ball valve.
  9. A wirework strainer, used in connection with pumps and pipes.
  10. The drum on which the rope is wound in a hoisting whim.
  11. The catcher's wire mask.
  12. A regular graph that has as few vertices as possible for its girth.
verb
  1. To confine in a cage; to put into and keep in a cage.
  2. To restrict someone's movement or creativity.
  3. To track individual responses to direct mail, either to maintain and develop mailing lists or to identify people who are not eligible to vote because they do not reside at the registered addresses.

caged

verb
  1. To confine in a cage; to put into and keep in a cage.
  2. To restrict someone's movement or creativity.
  3. To track individual responses to direct mail, either to maintain and develop mailing lists or to identify people who are not eligible to vote because they do not reside at the registered addresses.
adjective
  1. Confined in a cage.
  2. Of eggs: produced by birds confined in cages; not free-range.

change

noun
  1. The process of becoming different.
  2. Small denominations of money given in exchange for a larger denomination.
  3. A replacement, e.g. a change of clothes
  4. Balance of money returned from the sum paid after deducting the price of a purchase.
  5. Usually coins (as opposed to paper money), but sometimes inclusive of paper money
  6. A transfer between vehicles.
  7. A change-up pitch.
  8. (campanology) Any order in which a number of bells are struck, other than that of the diatonic scale.
  9. A place where merchants and others meet to transact business; an exchange.
  10. A public house; an alehouse.
verb
  1. To become something different.
  2. To make something into something else.
  3. To replace.
  4. To replace one's clothing.
  5. To replace the clothing of (the one wearing it).
  6. To transfer to another vehicle (train, bus, etc.)
  7. To exchange.
  8. To change hand while riding (a horse).

changed

verb
  1. To become something different.
  2. To make something into something else.
  3. To replace.
  4. To replace one's clothing.
  5. To replace the clothing of (the one wearing it).
  6. To transfer to another vehicle (train, bus, etc.)
  7. To exchange.
  8. To change hand while riding (a horse).

dang

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A damn, a negligible quantity, minimal consideration.
verb
  1. Damn.
adjective
  1. Damn.
interjection
  1. Damn.

Etymology 2

verb
  1. To hit or strike.
  2. To dash; to throw violently.
  3. To inflict minor damage upon, especially by hitting or striking.
  4. To fire or reject.
  5. To deduct, as points, from another, in the manner of a penalty; to penalize.
  6. To mishit (a golf ball).

Etymology 3

verb
  1. To dash.

edge

noun
  1. The boundary line of a surface.
  2. A one-dimensional face of a polytope. In particular, the joining line between two vertices of a polygon; the place where two faces of a polyhedron meet.
  3. An advantage.
  4. The thin cutting side of the blade of an instrument, such as an ax, knife, sword, or scythe; that which cuts as an edge does, or wounds deeply, etc.
  5. A sharp terminating border; a margin; a brink; an extreme verge.
  6. Sharpness; readiness or fitness to cut; keenness; intenseness of desire.
  7. The border or part adjacent to the line of division; the beginning or early part (of a period of time)
  8. A shot where the ball comes off the edge of the bat, often unintentionally.
  9. A connected pair of vertices in a graph.
  10. In male masturbation, a level of sexual arousal that is maintained just short of reaching the point of inevitability, or climax; see also edging.
verb
  1. To move an object slowly and carefully in a particular direction.
  2. To move slowly and carefully in a particular direction.
  3. (usually in the form 'just edge') To win by a small margin.
  4. To hit the ball with an edge of the bat, causing a fine deflection.
  5. To trim the margin of a lawn where the grass meets the sidewalk, usually with an electric or gas-powered lawn edger.
  6. To furnish with an edge; to construct an edging.
  7. To furnish with an edge, as a tool or weapon; to sharpen.
  8. To make sharp or keen; to incite; to exasperate; to goad; to urge or egg on.
  9. To delay one's orgasm so as to remain almost at the point of orgasm.

edged

verb
  1. To move an object slowly and carefully in a particular direction.
  2. To move slowly and carefully in a particular direction.
  3. (usually in the form 'just edge') To win by a small margin.
  4. To hit the ball with an edge of the bat, causing a fine deflection.
  5. To trim the margin of a lawn where the grass meets the sidewalk, usually with an electric or gas-powered lawn edger.
  6. To furnish with an edge; to construct an edging.
  7. To furnish with an edge, as a tool or weapon; to sharpen.
  8. To make sharp or keen; to incite; to exasperate; to goad; to urge or egg on.
  9. To delay one's orgasm so as to remain almost at the point of orgasm.
adjective
  1. That has a sharp planar surface.
  2. Followed by with: Having an edging of a certain material, color, and so on.

egad

interjection
  1. A mild exclamation of surprise, contempt, outrage, etc.

egged

verb
  1. To throw eggs at.
  2. To dip in or coat with beaten egg.
  3. To distort a circular cross-section (as in a tube) to an elliptical or oval shape, either inadvertently or intentionally.
verb
  1. To encourage, incite.

egghead

noun
  1. A bald person, especially a man.
  2. A bald head.
  3. A coldly out of personal touch intellectual.

eggheaded

No Definition Found.

encage

verb
  1. To lock inside a cage; to imprison.

encaged

verb
  1. To lock inside a cage; to imprison.

engage

verb
  1. (heading) To interact socially.
  2. (heading) To interact antagonistically.
  3. (heading) To interact contractually.
  4. (heading) To interact mechanically.
  5. To enter into (an activity), to participate (construed with in).
  6. To entangle.

engaged

verb
  1. (heading) To interact socially.
  2. (heading) To interact antagonistically.
  3. (heading) To interact contractually.
  4. (heading) To interact mechanically.
  5. To enter into (an activity), to participate (construed with in).
  6. To entangle.
adjective
  1. Agreed to be married.
  2. Busy or employed.
  3. Greatly interested.
  4. (of a telephone) Already involved in a telephone call when a third party calls
  5. (of a column) attached to a wall or sunk into it halfway
  6. (of gears or cogs) in contact and in operation
  7. Being attacked or attacking
  8. (of a foetus) Having the widest part of its presenting part, usually the head, enter the pelvic brim or inlet.

gadded

verb
  1. To move from one location to another in an apparently random and frivolous manner.

gaga

Etymology 1

adjective
  1. Mentally senile.
  2. Crazy.
  3. Infatuated.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A variant of dodgeball played inside a fenced area, usually a hexagon or octagon.

gage

Etymology 1

noun
  1. Something, such as a glove or other pledge, thrown down as a challenge to combat (now usually figurative).
  2. Something valuable deposited as a guarantee or pledge; security, ransom.
verb
  1. To give or deposit as a pledge or security; to pawn.
  2. To wager, to bet.
  3. To bind by pledge, or security; to engage.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A measure; a standard of measure; an instrument to determine dimensions, distance, or capacity; a standard
  2. An act of measuring.
  3. An estimate.
  4. Any instrument for ascertaining or regulating the level, state, dimensions or forms of things
  5. A thickness of sheet metal or wire designated by any of several numbering schemes.
  6. The distance between the rails of a railway.
  7. A semi-norm; a function that assigns a non-negative size to all vectors in a vector space.
  8. The number of stitches per inch, centimetre, or other unit of distance.
  9. Relative positions of two or more vessels with reference to the wind.
  10. The depth to which a vessel sinks in the water.
  11. (plastering) The quantity of plaster of Paris used with common plaster to make it set more quickly.
  12. That part of a shingle, slate, or tile, which is exposed to the weather, when laid; also, one course of such shingles, slates, or tiles.
  13. A unit of measurement which describes how many spheres of bore diameter of a shotgun can be had from one pound of lead; 12 gauge is roughly equivalent to .75 caliber.
  14. (by extension) A shotgun (synecdoche for 12 gauge shotgun, the most common chambering for combat and hunting shotguns).
  15. A tunnel-like ear piercing consisting of a hollow ring embedded in the lobe.
verb
  1. To measure or determine with a gauge; to measure the capacity of.
  2. To estimate.
  3. To appraise the character or ability of; to judge of.
  4. To draw into equidistant gathers by running a thread through it.
  5. To mix (a quantity of ordinary plaster) with a quantity of plaster of Paris.
  6. To chip, hew or polish (stones, bricks, etc) to a standard size and/or shape.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. A subspecies of plum, Prunus domestica subsp. italica.

Etymology 4

noun
  1. A quart pot.
  2. A pint pot.
  3. (metonymically) A drink.
  4. A tobacco pipe.
  5. A chamberpot.
  6. A small quantity of anything.
  7. Marijuana

gagged

verb
  1. To experience the vomiting reflex.
  2. To cause to heave with nausea.
  3. To restrain someone's speech by blocking his or her mouth.
  4. To pry or hold open by means of a gag.
  5. To restrain someone's speech without using physical means.
  6. To choke; to retch.
  7. To deceive (someone); to con.

ganache

noun
  1. A rich sauce, made of chocolate and cream, used also as the filling of truffles, and as a glaze.

gang

Etymology 1

verb
  1. To go; walk; proceed.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A number going in company; a number of friends or persons associated for a particular purpose.
  2. A group of laborers under one foreman; a squad.
  3. A criminal group with a common cultural background and identifying features, often associated with a particular section of a city.
  4. A group of criminals or alleged criminals who band together for mutual protection and profit.
  5. A group of politicians united in furtherance of a political goal.
  6. A chain gang.
  7. A combination of similar tools or implements arranged so as, by acting together, to save time or labor; a set.
  8. A set; all required for an outfit.
  9. (electrics) A number of switches or other electrical devices wired into one unit and covered by one faceplate.
  10. (electrics) A group of wires attached as a bundle.
  11. A going, journey; a course, path, track.
  12. An outhouse: an outbuilding used as a lavatory.
verb
  1. To attach similar items together to form a larger unit.

Etymology 3

verb
  1. (obsolete outside Northumbria) To go.

Etymology 4

verb
  1. To participate in a gangbang.
  2. To beat one or a smaller amount of people as a gang.
  3. To belong to a gang; to commit criminal acts as part of a gang.

Etymology 5

noun
  1. The earthy waste substances occurring in metallic ore.

ganged

verb
  1. To go; walk; proceed.
verb
  1. To attach similar items together to form a larger unit.
verb
  1. To participate in a gangbang.
  2. To beat one or a smaller amount of people as a gang.
  3. To belong to a gang; to commit criminal acts as part of a gang.

gene

noun
  1. A theoretical unit of heredity of living organisms; a gene may take several values and in principle predetermines a precise trait of an organism's form (phenotype), such as hair color.
  2. A segment of DNA or RNA from a cell's or an organism's genome, that may take several forms and thus parameterizes a phenomenon, in general the structure of a protein; locus.

ghee

noun
  1. A type of clarified butter used in South Asian cooking; usli ghee.
  2. Vegetable oil for cooking.

hang

Etymology 1

noun
  1. The way in which something hangs.
  2. A grip, understanding.
  3. An instance of ceasing to respond to input.
  4. A sharp or steep declivity or slope.
  5. A mass of hanging material.
  6. The smallest amount of concern or consideration; a damn.
verb
  1. To be or remain suspended.
  2. To float, as if suspended.
  3. (of a ball in cricket, tennis, etc.) To rebound unexpectedly or unusually slowly, due to backward spin on the ball or imperfections of the ground.
  4. To hold or bear in a suspended or inclined manner or position instead of erect.
  5. To cause (something) to be suspended, as from a hook, hanger, hinges or the like.
  6. To execute (someone) by suspension from the neck.
  7. To be executed by suspension by one's neck from a gallows, a tree, or other raised bar, attached by a rope tied into a noose.
  8. (used in maledictions) To damn.
  9. To loiter, hang around, to spend time idly.
  10. To exhibit (an object) by hanging.
  11. To apply (wallpaper or drywall to a wall).
  12. To decorate (something) with hanging objects.
  13. To remain persistently in one's thoughts.
  14. To prevent from reaching a decision, especially by refusing to join in a verdict that must be unanimous.
  15. To stop responding to manual input devices such as keyboard and mouse.
  16. To cause (a program or computer) to stop responding.
  17. To cause (a piece) to become vulnerable to capture.
  18. To be vulnerable to capture.
  19. Of a pitcher, to throw a hittable off-speed pitch.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. Cheap processed ham (cured pork), often made specially for sandwiches.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. Name and trademark of a musical instrument invented and built by PANArt Hangbau AG.

hanged

verb
  1. To be or remain suspended.
  2. To float, as if suspended.
  3. (of a ball in cricket, tennis, etc.) To rebound unexpectedly or unusually slowly, due to backward spin on the ball or imperfections of the ground.
  4. To hold or bear in a suspended or inclined manner or position instead of erect.
  5. To cause (something) to be suspended, as from a hook, hanger, hinges or the like.
  6. To execute (someone) by suspension from the neck.
  7. To be executed by suspension by one's neck from a gallows, a tree, or other raised bar, attached by a rope tied into a noose.
  8. (used in maledictions) To damn.
  9. To loiter, hang around, to spend time idly.
  10. To exhibit (an object) by hanging.
  11. To apply (wallpaper or drywall to a wall).
  12. To decorate (something) with hanging objects.
  13. To remain persistently in one's thoughts.
  14. To prevent from reaching a decision, especially by refusing to join in a verdict that must be unanimous.
  15. To stop responding to manual input devices such as keyboard and mouse.
  16. To cause (a program or computer) to stop responding.
  17. To cause (a piece) to become vulnerable to capture.
  18. To be vulnerable to capture.
  19. Of a pitcher, to throw a hittable off-speed pitch.

hedge

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A thicket of bushes or other shrubbery, especially one planted as a fence between two portions of land, or to separate the parts of a garden.
  2. A barrier (often consisting of a line of persons or objects) to protect someone or something from harm.
  3. A mound of earth, stone- or turf-faced, often topped with bushes, used as a fence between any two portions of land.
  4. A non-committal or intentionally ambiguous statement.
  5. Contract or arrangement reducing one's exposure to risk (for example the risk of price movements or interest rate movements).
  6. (noun adjunct) Used attributively, with figurative indication of a person's upbringing, or professional activities, taking place by the side of the road; third-rate.

Etymology 2

verb
  1. To enclose with a hedge or hedges.
  2. To obstruct or surround.
  3. To offset the risk associated with.
  4. To avoid verbal commitment.
  5. To construct or repair a hedge.
  6. To reduce one's exposure to risk.

hedged

verb
  1. To enclose with a hedge or hedges.
  2. To obstruct or surround.
  3. To offset the risk associated with.
  4. To avoid verbal commitment.
  5. To construct or repair a hedge.
  6. To reduce one's exposure to risk.
adjective
  1. Offset by another financial asset.

henge

noun
  1. A prehistoric enclosure in the form of a circle or circular arc defined by a raised circular bank and a circular ditch usually running inside the bank, with one or more entrances leading into the enclosed open space.

nagged

verb
  1. To continuously remind or complain to (someone) in an annoying way, often about insignificant or unnecessary matters.
  2. To bother with persistent thoughts or memories.
  3. To bother or disturb persistently in any way.