Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Answers to yesterday's Bee

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The official answers for today's puzzle are:

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Number of Pangrams: 2

Maximum Puzzle Score: 225

Number of Answers: 42

Points Needed for Genius: 158

Genius requires between 18 and 37 words. You need at least a 9-letter word to reach genius. If you don't get the pangrams, you need 83% of the total points to reach genius. If you get the pangrams, 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 225 was in the 76th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there was a score this high was on December 7, 2024.
The highest score ever was 537 on January 22, 2021.
The lowest score ever was 47 on March 27, 2023.

This puzzle's 42 possible answers rank it in the 59th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there were more answers than this was on December 8, 2024.
The highest number of answers was 81 on June 8, 2019.
The lowest number of answers was 16 on March 27, 2023.

It takes a 9-letter word for genius.
The last time this happened was on September 7, 2024.

Today's puzzle has an average word length of 6.0.
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 188
  • loll 180
  • toot 172
  • naan 165
  • nana 165
  • lilt 130
  • till 130
  • tilt 130
  • tint 126
  • mama 121
  • mamma 121
  • nene 119
  • acacia 115
  • acai 115
  • onto 113
  • toon 113
  • anal 110
  • onion 108
  • anon 106
  • boob 106
  • booboo 106
  • olio 103
  • papa 102
  • baba 101
  • lull 101
  • lulu 101
  • dodo 100
  • mitt 100
  • poop 100
  • tact 99
  • allay 97
  • ally 97
  • call 97
  • calla 97
  • ratatat 96
  • tart 96
  • tartar 96
  • attar 95
  • cocci 95
  • tatty 95
  • tutu 95
  • tattoo 94
  • ammo 93
  • epee 93
  • momma 93
  • mono 93
  • moon 93
  • peep 93
  • loon 91
  • roar 91


How long are words in the Bee?

There have been 94,282 answers ever accepted in the Bee - with 10,359 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*:

  • cine
  • enceinte
  • eventive
  • evincive
  • fennec
  • ficin
  • incent
  • inti
  • intine
  • neif
  • nett
  • neve
  • nevi
  • niente
  • nieve
  • niff
  • tein
  • tenne
  • tentie
  • tiffin
  • venene
  • venin
  • venine
  • vinic

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

cent

noun
  1. (money) A subunit of currency equal to one-hundredth of the main unit of currency in many countries. Symbol: ¢.
  2. A small sum of money.
  3. (money) A subunit of currency equal to one-hundredth of the euro.
  4. (money) A coin having face value of one cent (in either of the above senses).
  5. A hundredth of a semitone or half step.
noun
  1. The point in the interior of a circle that is equidistant from all points on the circumference.
  2. The point in the interior of a sphere that is equidistant from all points on the circumference.
  3. The middle portion of something; the part well away from the edges.
  4. The point on a line that is midway between the ends.
  5. The point in the interior of any figure of any number of dimensions that has as its coordinates the arithmetic mean of the coordinates of all points on the perimeter of the figure (or of all points in the interior for a center of volume).
  6. The subgroup (respectively, subring), denoted Z(G), of those elements of a given group (respectively, ring) G that commute with every element of G.
  7. A place where the greater part of some function or activity occurs.
  8. A topic that is particularly important in a given context.
  9. A player in the middle of the playing area
  10. A player who can go all over the court, except the shooting circles.
  11. A pass played into the centre of the pitch.
  12. One of the backs operating in a central area of the pitch, either the inside centre or outside centre.
  13. A temporary structure upon which the materials of a vault or arch are supported in position until the work becomes self-supporting.
  14. One of the two conical steel pins in a lathe, etc., upon which the work is held, and about which it revolves.
  15. A conical recess or indentation in the end of a shaft or other work, to receive the point of a center, on which the work can turn, as in a lathe.
  16. The ensemble of moderate or centrist political parties.
noun
  1. A centigrade temperature scale having the freezing point of water defined as 0° and its boiling point defined as 100° at standard atmospheric pressure. Known as the Celsius scale since 1948.
  2. A single degree on this scale.
  3. A unit of angle equal to the hundredth part of a quadrant. Its symbol is gon.
noun
  1. (Sanskrit and other Indian philology) satakam, set of one hundred verses connected by the same metre or topic
  2. Perfect score on a board exam
noun
  1. A period of 100 consecutive years; often specifically a numbered period with conventional start and end dates, e.g., the twentieth century, which stretches from (strictly) 1901 through 2000, or (informally) 1900 through 1999. The first century AD was from 1 to 100.
  2. A unit in ancient Roman army, originally of 100 army soldiers as part of a cohort, later of more varied sizes (but typically containing 60 to 70 or 80) soldiers or other men (guards, police, firemen), commanded by a centurion.
  3. A political division of ancient Rome, meeting in the Centuriate Assembly.
  4. A hundred things of the same kind; a hundred.
  5. A hundred runs scored either by a single player in one innings, or by two players in a partnership.
  6. A score of one hundred points.
  7. A race a hundred units (as meters, kilometres, miles) in length.
  8. A banknote in the denomination of one hundred dollars.

efficient

noun
  1. A cause; something that causes an effect
adjective
  1. Making good, thorough, or careful use of resources; not consuming extra. Especially, making good use of time or energy
  2. Expressing the proportion of consumed energy that was successfully used in a process; the ratio of useful output to total input
  3. Causing effects, producing results; bringing into being; initiating change (rare except in philosophical and legal expression efficient cause = causative factor or agent)
  4. (old use) effective

entente

noun
  1. An informal alliance or friendly understanding between two states.

entice

verb
  1. To lure; to attract by arousing desire or hope.

even

Etymology 1

noun
  1. (diminutive) An even number.
verb
  1. To make flat and level.
  2. To equal.
  3. To be equal.
  4. To place in an equal state, as to obligation, or in a state in which nothing is due on either side; to balance, as accounts; to make quits.
  5. To set right; to complete.
  6. To act up to; to keep pace with.
adjective
  1. Flat and level.
  2. Without great variation.
  3. Equal in proportion, quantity, size, etc.
  4. (of an integer) Divisible by two.
  5. (of a number) Convenient for rounding other numbers to; for example, ending in a zero.
  6. On equal monetary terms; neither owing nor being owed.
  7. On equal terms of a moral sort; quits.
  8. Parallel; on a level; reaching the same limit.
  9. Without an irregularity, flaw, or blemish; pure.
  10. Associate; fellow; of the same condition.
adverb
  1. Exactly, just, fully.
  2. In reality; implying an extreme example in the case mentioned, as compared to the implied reality.
  3. Emphasizing a comparative.
  4. Signalling a correction of one's previous utterance; rather, that is.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. Evening.

event

Etymology 1

noun
  1. An occurrence; something that happens.
  2. A prearranged social activity (function, etc.)
  3. One of several contests that combine to make up a competition.
  4. An end result; an outcome (now chiefly in phrases).
  5. A point in spacetime having three spatial coordinates and one temporal coordinate.
  6. A possible action that the user can perform that is monitored by an application or the operating system (event listener). When an event occurs an event handler is called which performs a specific task.
  7. A set of some of the possible outcomes; a subset of the sample space.
  8. An affair in hand; business; enterprise.
  9. An episode of severe health conditions.
verb
  1. To occur, take place.

Etymology 2

verb
  1. To be emitted or breathed out; to evaporate.
  2. To expose to the air, ventilate.

evince

verb
  1. To show or demonstrate clearly; to manifest.

feint

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A movement made to confuse the opponent; a dummy.
  2. That which is feigned; an assumed or false appearance; a pretense or stratagem.
  3. (war) An offensive movement resembling an attack in all but its continuance
verb
  1. To make a feint, or mock attack.
adjective
  1. Feigned; counterfeit.
  2. (war) (of an attack) directed toward a different part from the intended strike

Etymology 2

noun
  1. The narrowest rule used in the production of lined writing paper.

fence

noun
  1. A thin artificial barrier that separates two pieces of land or a house perimeter.
  2. Someone who hides or buys and sells stolen goods, a criminal middleman for transactions of stolen goods.
  3. Skill in oral debate.
  4. The art or practice of fencing.
  5. A guard or guide on machinery.
  6. A barrier, for example an emotional barrier.
  7. A memory barrier.
verb
  1. To enclose, contain or separate by building fence.
  2. To defend or guard.
  3. To engage in the selling or buying of stolen goods.
  4. To engage in the sport of fencing.
  5. To jump over a fence.
  6. To conceal the truth by giving equivocal answers; to hedge; to be evasive.

fifteen

numeral
  1. The cardinal number occurring after fourteen (14) and before sixteen (16).

fine

Etymology 1

noun
  1. Fine champagne; French brandy.
  2. (usually in the plural) Something that is fine; fine particles.
verb
  1. To make finer, purer, or cleaner; to purify or clarify.
  2. To become finer, purer, or cleaner.
  3. To make finer, or less coarse, as in bulk, texture, etc.
  4. To change by fine gradations.
  5. To clarify (wine and beer) by filtration.
  6. To become gradually fine; to diminish; to dwindle (with away, down, or off).
adjective
  1. Senses referring to subjective quality.
  2. Senses referring to objective quality.
  3. Behind the batsman and at a small angle to the line between the wickets.
  4. Subtle; thin; tenuous.
adverb
  1. Expression of (typically) reluctant agreement.
  2. Well, nicely, in a positive way.
  3. Finely; elegantly; delicately.
  4. In a manner so that the driven ball strikes the object ball so far to one side as to be barely deflected, the object ball being driven to one side.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A fee levied as punishment for breaking the law.
verb
  1. To issue a fine as punishment to (someone).
  2. To pay a fine.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. The end of a musical composition.
  2. The location in a musical score that indicates the end of the piece, particularly when the piece ends somewhere in the middle of the score due to a section of the music being repeated.

Etymology 4

noun
  1. End; conclusion; termination; extinction.
  2. A final agreement concerning lands or rents between persons, as the lord and his vassal.
  3. A sum of money or price paid for obtaining a benefit, favor, or privilege, as for admission to a copyhold, or for obtaining or renewing a lease.
verb
  1. To finish; to cease.
  2. To cause to cease; to stop.

finite

adjective
  1. Having an end or limit; (of a quantity) constrained by bounds; (of a set) whose number of elements is a natural number.
  2. (grammar, as opposed to infinite or nonfinite) limited by person or number.

incentive

noun
  1. Something that motivates, rouses, or encourages.
  2. A bonus or reward, often monetary, to work harder.
adjective
  1. Inciting; encouraging or moving; rousing to action; stimulating.
  2. Serving to kindle or set on fire.

incite

verb
  1. To stir up or excite; to rouse or goad into action.

ineffective

adjective
  1. Not having the desired effect; ineffectual
  2. Lacking in ability; incompetent or inadequate

inefficient

noun
  1. A person who cannot or does not work efficiently.
adjective
  1. Not efficient; not producing the effect intended or desired; inefficacious
  2. Incapable of, or indisposed to, effective action; habitually slack or unproductive; effecting little or nothing

infect

verb
  1. To bring into contact with a substance that causes illness (a pathogen).
  2. To make somebody enthusiastic about one's own passion.
adjective
  1. Infected.

infective

noun
  1. A person who is capable of spreading a disease by infecting others.
adjective
  1. Able to cause infection; infectious

infinite

noun
  1. Something that is infinite in nature.
adjective
  1. Indefinably large, countlessly great; immense.
  2. Boundless, endless, without end or limits; innumerable.
  3. (with plural noun) Infinitely many.
  4. Greater than any positive quantity or magnitude; limitless.
  5. (of a set) Having infinitely many elements.
  6. (grammar) Not limited by person or number.
  7. Capable of endless repetition; said of certain forms of the canon, also called perpetual fugues, constructed so that their ends lead to their beginnings.
numeral
  1. Infinitely many.

infinitive

noun
  1. (grammar) the infinitive mood or mode (a grammatical mood)
  2. (grammar) A non-finite verb form considered neutral with respect to inflection; depending on language variously found used with auxiliary verbs, in subordinate clauses, or acting as a gerund, and often as the dictionary form.
  3. (grammar) A verbal noun formed from the infinitive of a verb.
adjective
  1. (grammar) Formed with the infinitive.
  2. Unlimited; not bounded or restricted; undefined.

intent

noun
  1. A purpose; something that is intended.
  2. The state of someone’s mind at the time of committing an offence.
adjective
  1. Firmly fixed or concentrated on something.
  2. Engrossed.
  3. Unwavering from a course of action.

invective

noun
  1. An expression which inveighs or rails against a person.
  2. A severe or violent censure or reproach.
  3. Something spoken or written, intended to cast shame, disgrace, censure, or reproach on another.
  4. A harsh or reproachful accusation.
adjective
  1. Characterized by invection or railing.

invent

verb
  1. To design a new process or mechanism.
  2. To create something fictional for a particular purpose.
  3. To come upon; to find; to discover.

inventive

adjective
  1. Of, or relating to invention; pertaining to the act of devising new mechanisms or processes.
  2. Possessed of a particular capacity for the design of new mechanisms or processes, creative or skilful at inventing.
  3. Purposefully fictive

invite

Etymology 1

verb
  1. To ask for the presence or participation of someone or something.
  2. To request formally.
  3. To encourage.
  4. To allure; to draw to; to tempt to come; to induce by pleasure or hope; to attract.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. An invitation.

invitee

noun
  1. A person who is invited into or onto someone else's premises

nene

noun
  1. The Hawaiian goose, Branta sandvicensis, which was designated the state bird of Hawaii in 1957.

nice

Etymology 1

noun
  1. Niceness.
adjective
  1. Pleasant, satisfactory.
  2. Of a person: friendly, attractive.
  3. Respectable; virtuous.
  4. (with and) Shows that the given adjective is desirable, or acts as a mild intensifier; pleasantly, quite.
  5. Silly, ignorant; foolish.
  6. Particular in one's conduct; scrupulous, painstaking; choosy.
  7. Particular as regards rules or qualities; strict.
  8. Showing or requiring great precision or sensitive discernment; subtle.
  9. Easily injured; delicate; dainty.
  10. Doubtful, as to the outcome; risky.
adverb
  1. Nicely.
interjection
  1. Used to signify a job well done.
  2. Used to signify approval.

Etymology 2

verb
  1. To run a process with a specified (usually lower) priority.

niece

noun
  1. A daughter of one’s sibling, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law; either the daughter of one's brother ("fraternal niece"), or of one's sister ("sororal niece").

nine

noun
  1. The digit or figure 9.
  2. A playing card with nine pips.
  3. A nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistol.
  4. (usually in the plural) A statistical unit of proportion (of reliability, purity, etc.).
  5. A baseball club, team, or lineup (composed of nine players).
numeral
  1. A numerical value equal to 9; the number following eight and preceding ten.
  2. Describing a group or set with nine elements.

nineteen

numeral
  1. The cardinal number occurring after eighteen and before twenty, represented in Roman numerals as XIX and in Arabic numerals as 19. It is the last/largest of the "teens".

nite

noun
  1. The period between sunset and sunrise, when a location faces far away from the sun, thus when the sky is dark.
  2. (Astronomy) The period of darkness beginning at the end of evening astronomical twilight when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon, and ending at the beginning of morning astronomical twilight.
  3. (Legal) Often defined in the legal system as beginning 30 minutes after sunset, and ending 30 minutes before sunrise.
  4. An evening or night spent at a particular activity.
  5. A night (and part of the days before and after it) spent in a place away from home, e.g. a hotel.
  6. Nightfall.
  7. Darkness (due to it being nighttime).
  8. A dark blue colour, midnight blue.
  9. A night's worth of competitions, generally one game.

teen

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A teenager.
adjective
  1. Of or having to do with teenagers; teenage

Etymology 2

noun
  1. Grief; sorrow; trouble.
  2. Vexation; anger; hate.

Etymology 3

verb
  1. To excite; to provoke; to vex; to afflict; to injure.
  2. To become angry or distressed.

Etymology 4

verb
  1. (provincial) To hedge or fence in; to enclose.

tenet

noun
  1. An opinion, belief, or principle that is held as absolute truth by someone or especially an organization.

tent

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A pavilion or portable lodge consisting of skins, canvas, or some strong cloth, stretched and sustained by poles, used for sheltering people from the weather.
  2. The representation of a tent used as a bearing.
  3. A portable pulpit set up outside to accommodate worshippers who cannot fit into a church.
  4. A trouser tent; a piece of fabric, etc. protruding outward like a tent.
verb
  1. To go camping.
  2. To prop up aluminum foil in an inverted "V" (reminiscent of a pop-up tent) over food to reduce splatter, before putting it in the oven.
  3. To form into a tent-like shape.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. Attention; regard, care.
  2. Intention; design.
verb
  1. To attend to; to heed
  2. To guard; to hinder.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. A roll of lint or linen, or a conical or cylindrical piece of sponge or other absorbent, used chiefly to dilate a natural canal, to keep open the orifice of a wound, or to absorb discharges.
  2. A probe for searching a wound.
verb
  1. (sometimes figurative) To probe or to search with a tent; to keep open with a tent.

Etymology 4

noun
  1. A kind of wine of a deep red color, chiefly from Galicia or Malaga in Spain; called also tent wine, and tinta.

tinct

No Definition Found.

tine

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A spike or point on an implement or tool, especially a prong of a fork or a tooth of a comb.
  2. A small branch, especially on an antler or horn.
  3. A wild vetch or tare.

Etymology 2

adjective
  1. Small, diminutive

Etymology 3

noun
  1. Trouble; distress; teen.

Etymology 4

verb
  1. To kindle; to set on fire.
  2. To rage; to smart.

Etymology 5

verb
  1. To shut in, or enclose.

tint

noun
  1. A slight coloring.
  2. A pale or faint tinge of any color; especially, a variation of a color obtained by adding white (contrast shade)
  3. A color considered with reference to other very similar colors.
  4. A shaded effect in engraving, produced by the juxtaposition of many fine parallel lines.
verb
  1. To shade, to color.

vein

noun
  1. A blood vessel that transports blood from the capillaries back to the heart.
  2. (in plural) The entrails of a shrimp.
  3. In leaves, a thickened portion of the leaf containing the vascular bundle.
  4. The nervure of an insect’s wing.
  5. A stripe or streak of a different colour or composition in materials such as wood, cheese, marble or other rocks.
  6. A topic of discussion; a train of association, thoughts, emotions, etc.
  7. A style, tendency, or quality.
  8. A fissure, cleft or cavity, as in the earth or other substance.
verb
  1. To mark with veins or a vein-like pattern.

vent

Etymology 1

noun
  1. An opening through which gases, especially air, can pass.
  2. A small aperture.
  3. The opening of a volcano from which lava flows.
  4. A verbalized frustration.
  5. The excretory opening of lower orders of vertebrates.
  6. A slit in the seam of a garment.
  7. The opening at the breech of a firearm, through which fire is communicated to the powder of the charge; touchhole.
  8. In steam boilers, a sectional area of the passage for gases divided by the length of the same passage in feet.
  9. Opportunity of escape or passage from confinement or privacy; outlet.
  10. Emission; escape; passage to notice or expression; publication; utterance.
verb
  1. To allow gases to escape.
  2. To allow to escape through a vent.
  3. To express a strong emotion.
  4. To snuff; to breathe or puff out; to snort.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. Ventriloquism.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. Sale; opportunity to sell; market
verb
  1. To sell; to vend.

Etymology 4

noun
  1. A baiting place; an inn.

Etymology 5

noun
  1. Ventilation or ventilator.
verb
  1. To ventilate; to use a ventilator; to use ventilation.

vine

noun
  1. The climbing plant that produces grapes.
  2. Any plant of the genus Vitis.
  3. (by extension) Any similar climbing or trailing plant.

innie

noun
  1. A navel that is formed of a hollow in the abdomen (as opposed to one that protrudes from the abdomen).
  2. A vagina with inner labia minora