Tuesday, January 28, 2025

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: 175

Number of Answers: 46

Points Needed for Genius: 122

Genius requires between 20 and 40 words. You need at least a 6-letter word to reach genius. If you don't get the pangram, you need 76% 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 175 was in the 54th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there was a score this high was on January 26, 2025.
The highest score ever was 537 on January 22, 2021.
The lowest score ever was 47 on March 27, 2023.

This puzzle's 46 possible answers rank it in the 68th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there were more answers than this was on January 26, 2025.
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 6-letter word for genius.
The last time this happened was on January 27, 2025.

Today's puzzle has an average word length of 5.0.
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 190
  • loll 182
  • toot 179
  • naan 167
  • nana 167
  • lilt 133
  • till 133
  • tilt 133
  • tint 131
  • mama 124
  • mamma 124
  • nene 123
  • onto 117
  • toon 117
  • acacia 116
  • acai 116
  • anal 111
  • onion 110
  • boob 108
  • booboo 108
  • anon 107
  • baba 105
  • olio 104
  • papa 103
  • tact 103
  • lull 102
  • lulu 102
  • mitt 102
  • dodo 101
  • poop 101
  • allay 99
  • ally 99
  • call 99
  • calla 99
  • ratatat 99
  • tart 99
  • tartar 99
  • attar 98
  • tattoo 98
  • tatty 97
  • tutu 97
  • ammo 96
  • cocci 96
  • momma 96
  • mono 96
  • moon 96
  • epee 94
  • peep 94
  • coot 91
  • loon 91


How long are words in the Bee?

There have been 96,449 answers ever accepted in the Bee - with 10,417 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*:

  • aalii
  • abaxial
  • abba
  • abolla
  • aboma
  • alamo
  • alba
  • alma
  • ambo
  • amia
  • axal
  • axil
  • baal
  • baalim
  • baboo
  • babool
  • balboa
  • biali
  • biaxal
  • bilboa
  • bima
  • bombax
  • boxball
  • boxla
  • ilia
  • ilial
  • imbalm
  • ixia
  • lall
  • lamia
  • liblab
  • limba
  • maill
  • malm
  • mamilla
  • mammilla
  • milia
  • mola
  • molal
  • moxa
  • obia
  • olla

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

abloom

adjective
  1. Blooming; covered in flowers.
  2. Having something growing or grown.
  3. Thriving in health, beauty, and vigor; exhibiting youth-like beauty.
adverb
  1. In or into bloom; in a blooming state; having flower blooms unfolding.

aboil

No Definition Found.

aioli

noun
  1. A type of sauce, similar to mayonnaise, made from garlic, egg, lemon juice and olive oil.

alibi

noun
  1. The plea or mode of defense under which a person on trial for a crime proves or attempts to prove being in another place when the alleged act was committed
verb
  1. To provide an alibi for.
  2. To provide an excuse for.

ammo

noun
  1. Ammunition.
verb
  1. To load up on ammunition.

axial

noun
  1. A flight feather that appears between the primaries and secondaries on some birds.
  2. A plane parallel to the surface of a tooth.
adjective
  1. Relating to, resembling, or situated on an axis
  2. Belonging to the axis of the body, or to the axis of any appendage or organ
  3. In the same direction as the axis, parallel to the axis.

axilla

noun
  1. The angle or point of divergence between the upper side of a branch, leaf, or petiole, and the stem or branch from which it springs.
noun
  1. The armpit, or the cavity beneath the junction of the arm and shoulder.

axiom

noun
  1. A seemingly self-evident or necessary truth which is based on assumption; a principle or proposition which cannot actually be proved or disproved.
  2. (proof theory) A fundamental assumption that serves as a basis for deduction of theorems; a postulate (sometimes distinguished from postulates as being universally applicable, whereas postulates are particular to a certain science or context).
  3. An established principle in some artistic practice or science that is universally received.

baba

noun
  1. A kind of sponge cake soaked in rum-flavoured syrup.
  2. (esp. among people of East European ancestry) A grandmother.
  3. An old woman, especially a traditional old woman from an eastern European culture.
  4. (esp. among people of Indian ancestry) A father.
  5. (Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism) A holy man, a spiritual leader.
  6. A baby, child.
  7. In baby talk, often used for a variety of words beginning with b, such as bottle or blanket.

bail

Etymology 1

noun
  1. Security, usually a sum of money, exchanged for the release of an arrested person as a guarantee of that person's appearance for trial.
  2. Release from imprisonment on payment of such money.
  3. The person providing such payment.
  4. A bucket or scoop used for removing water from a boat etc.
  5. A person who bails water out of a boat.
  6. Custody; keeping.
verb
  1. To secure the release of an arrested person by providing bail.
  2. To release a person under such guarantee.
  3. To hand over personal property to be held temporarily by another as a bailment.
  4. To remove (water) from a boat by scooping it out.
  5. To remove water from (a boat) by scooping it out.
  6. To set free; to deliver; to release.

Etymology 2

verb
  1. To exit quickly.
  2. To fail to meet a commitment.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. A hoop, ring or handle (especially of a kettle or bucket).
  2. A stall for a cow (or other animal) (usually tethered with a semi-circular hoop).
  3. A hinged bar as a restraint for animals, or on a typewriter.
  4. A frame to restrain a cow during milking or feeding.
  5. A hoop, ring, or other object used to connect a pendant to a necklace.
  6. One of the two wooden crosspieces that rest on top of the stumps to form a wicket.
  7. (furniture) Normally curved handle suspended between sockets as a drawer pull. This may also be on a kettle or pail.
verb
  1. To secure the head of a cow during milking.

Etymology 4

verb
  1. To confine.
  2. To secure (a cow) by placing its head in a bail for milking.
  3. To keep (a traveller) detained in order to rob them; to corner (a wild animal); loosely, to detain, hold up. (Usually with up.)

ball

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A solid or hollow sphere, or roughly spherical mass.
  2. A round or ellipsoidal object.
  3. (mildly, usually in the plural) A testicle.
  4. A leather-covered cushion, fastened to a handle called a ballstock; formerly used by printers for inking the form, then superseded by the roller.
  5. A large pill, a form in which medicine was given to horses; a bolus.
verb
  1. To form or wind into a ball.
  2. To heat in a furnace and form into balls for rolling.
  3. To have sexual intercourse with.
  4. To gather balls which cling to the feet, as of damp snow or clay; to gather into balls.
  5. (usually in present participle) To be hip or cool.
  6. To play basketball.
  7. To punish by affixing a ball and chain
interjection
  1. An appeal by the crowd for holding the ball against a tackled player. This is heard almost any time an opposition player is tackled, without regard to whether the rules about "prior opportunity" to dispose of the ball are fulfilled.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A formal dance.
  2. A very enjoyable time.

balm

noun
  1. Any of various aromatic resins exuded from certain plants, especially trees of the genus Commiphora of Africa, Arabia and India and Myroxylon of South America.
  2. A plant or tree yielding such substance.
  3. Any soothing oil or lotion, especially an aromatic one.
  4. Something soothing.
  5. The lemon balm, Melissa officinalis
  6. Any of a number of other aromatic herbs with a similar citrus-like scent, such as bee balm and horse balm.
verb
  1. To anoint with balm, or with anything medicinal.
  2. To soothe; to mitigate.

bamboo

noun
  1. A grass of the Poaceae family, characterised by its woody, hollow, round, straight, jointed stem, all of which are in the Bambuseae tribe.
  2. The wood of the bamboo plant as a material or cane.
  3. A didgeridoo.
  4. A member of the British military or British East India Company who spent so much time in Indonesia, India, or Malaysia that they never went back home.
verb
  1. To flog with a bamboo cane.
  2. To paint (furniture, etc.) to give it the appearance of bamboo.
  3. To penetrate sexually.
adjective
  1. Made of the wood of the bamboo.

baobab

noun
  1. A tree, Adansonia digitata (and similar species), native to tropical Africa, having a broad swollen trunk and edible gourd-like hanging fruits.

biaxial

adjective
  1. Having two axes
  2. Having a value in two perpendicular directions. [In solid mechanics it generally means that normal stresses exist in two of the possible three directions. Note that they do not have to be equal in sign or magnitude.]

bilabial

noun
  1. A speech sound articulated with both lips.
adjective
  1. Articulated with both lips.

blab

noun
  1. One who blabs; a babbler; a telltale; a gossip or gossiper.
  2. Gossip; prattle.
verb
  1. To tell tales; to gossip without reserve or discretion.

blam

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A sudden, explosive sound, such as is made by a gunshot
verb
  1. To shoot, to let gunfire pass.
  2. To shoot, to kill by gunshot.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. Spam posted to a blog

bola

noun
  1. A throwing weapon made of weights on the ends of a cord.

iamb

noun
  1. A metrical foot in verse consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

iambi

noun
  1. An iamb

imam

noun
  1. (usually capitalized) A Shi'ite Muslim leader.
  2. One who leads the salat prayers in a mosque.

labia

noun
  1. The folds of tissue at the opening of the vulva, at either side of the vagina.
noun
  1. A liplike structure; especially one of the two pairs of folds of skin either side of the vulva.
  2. The lip of a labiate corolla.
  3. The lip against which pressured air is driven to produce sound in a recorder and in a pipe organ with flue pipes.

labial

noun
  1. A consonant articulated by the lips.
  2. An organ pipe having a lip that influences its sound.
  3. Any of the scales bordering the mouth opening of a reptile.
adjective
  1. Of or pertaining to the lips or labia.
  2. Articulated by the lips, as the consonants b, m and w.
  3. Of an incisor or canine, on the side facing the lips. See mesial.
  4. Furnished with lips.

lama

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A master of Tibetan Buddhism.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A South American mammal of the camel family, Lama glama, used as a domestic beast of burden and a source of wool and meat.

lamb

noun
  1. A young sheep.
  2. The flesh of a lamb or sheep used as food.
  3. A person who is meek, docile and easily led.
  4. A simple, unsophisticated person.
  5. One who ignorantly speculates on the stock exchange and is victimized.
verb
  1. Of a sheep, to give birth.
  2. To assist (sheep) to give birth.

lima

No Definition Found.

llama

noun
  1. A South American mammal of the camel family, Lama glama, used as a domestic beast of burden and a source of wool and meat.

loam

noun
  1. A type of soil; an earthy mixture of sand, silt and clay, with organic matter to which its fertility is chiefly due.
  2. A mixture of sand, clay, and other materials, used in making moulds for large castings, often without a pattern.
verb
  1. To cover, smear, or fill with loam.
adjective
  1. Made of loam; consisting of loam.

mail

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A bag or wallet.
  2. A bag containing letters to be delivered by post.
  3. The material conveyed by the postal service.
  4. A stagecoach, train or ship that delivers such post.
  5. The postal service or system in general.
  6. The letters, parcels, etc. delivered to a particular address or person.
  7. Electronic mail, e-mail: a computer network–based service for sending, storing, and forwarding electronic messages.
  8. A trunk, box, or bag, in which clothing, etc., may be carried.
verb
  1. (ditransitive) To send (a letter, parcel, etc.) through the mail.
  2. (ditransitive) To send by electronic mail.
  3. To contact (a person) by electronic mail.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. Armour consisting of metal rings or plates linked together.
  2. A contrivance of interlinked rings, for rubbing off the loose hemp on lines and white cordage.
  3. Any hard protective covering of an animal, as the scales and plates of reptiles, shell of a lobster, etc.
  4. A spot on a bird's feather; by extension, a spotted feather.
verb
  1. To arm with mail.
  2. To pinion.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. An old French coin worth half a denier.
  2. A monetary payment or tribute.
  3. Rent.
  4. Tax.

mailbox

noun
  1. A box into which mail is put
  2. A folder or account for the storage of e-mail; an electronic in-box or mailstore.

maim

noun
  1. A serious wound
verb
  1. To wound seriously; to cause permanent loss of function of a limb or part of the body.

mall

noun
  1. A pedestrianised street, especially a shopping precinct.
  2. An enclosed shopping centre.
  3. An alley where the game of pall mall was played.
  4. A public walk; a level shaded walk, a promenade.
  5. A heavy wooden mallet or hammer used in the game of pall mall.
  6. The game of polo.
  7. An old game played with malls or mallets and balls; pall mall.
verb
  1. To beat with a mall, or mallet; to beat with something heavy; to bruise
  2. To build up with the development of shopping malls
  3. To shop at the mall

mama

noun
  1. (hypocoristic, usually childish) Mother, female parent.

mamba

noun
  1. Any of various venomous snakes of the genus Dendroaspis, native to Africa, that live in trees.

mambo

noun
  1. A voodoo priestess (in Haiti)
  2. A Latin-American musical genre, adapted from rumba, originating from Cuba in the 1940s, or a dance or rhythm of this genre.
verb
  1. To perform this dance.

mamma

Etymology 1

noun
  1. The milk-secreting organ of female humans and other mammals which includes the mammary gland and the nipple or teat; a breast; an udder. (plural: mammae)
  2. An accessory cloud like a mammary in appearance, which can form on the underside of most cloud genera

Etymology 2

noun
  1. (hypocoristic, usually childish) Mother, female parent.

mammal

noun
  1. An animal of the class Mammalia, characterized by being warm-blooded, having hair and feeding milk to its young.
  2. A vertebrate with three bones in the inner ear and one in the jaw.

maxi

noun
  1. A coat or skirt having such a hemline
adjective
  1. Having a hemline at ankle length
noun
  1. A class of racing sailing yacht that pushes at the upper limits of the International Offshore Rule of regulated sail yacht racing, having a waterline length in excess of 70-feet.
noun
  1. A music single with more than two tracks, i.e. not just an A-side and a B-side.
noun
  1. A maxi boat
noun
  1. The highest limit
  2. The greatest value of a set or other mathematical structure, especially the global maximum or a local maximum of a function
  3. An upper bound of a set which is also an element of that set
  4. The largest value of a batch or sample or the upper bound of a probability distribution
  5. A 147 break; the highest possible break
  6. A score of 180 with three darts
  7. A scoring shot for 6 runs

maxilla

noun
  1. Either of the two bones that together form the upper jaw.
  2. (arthropodology) One of a set of paired mouthparts found in many arthropods and used for tasting and manipulating food.

maxim

noun
  1. A self-evident axiom or premise; a pithy expression of a general principle or rule.
  2. A precept; a succinct statement or observation of a rule of conduct or moral teaching.

maxima

noun
  1. A music note equal to two (or sometimes three) longæ; in modern notation, this is typically equivalent to eight semibreves.
noun
  1. The highest limit
  2. The greatest value of a set or other mathematical structure, especially the global maximum or a local maximum of a function
  3. An upper bound of a set which is also an element of that set
  4. The largest value of a batch or sample or the upper bound of a probability distribution
  5. A 147 break; the highest possible break
  6. A score of 180 with three darts
  7. A scoring shot for 6 runs

maximal

noun
  1. The element of a set with the greatest magnitude.
  2. Said of an ideal of a ring or a filter of a lattice: that it is as large as it can be without being trivial (improper).
  3. Said of a set of well-formed formulas: that it is as large as it can be without being inconsistent; i.e. that for any well-formed formula φ, the set contains either φ or ~φ.
adjective
  1. Largest, greatest (in magnitude), highest, most.

momma

noun
  1. Mother
  2. A voluptuous woman.
  3. One's wife or girlfriend.

moola

noun
  1. Money, cash.

boba

noun
  1. Short for boba tea.
noun
  1. A small edible ball made primarily from tapioca starch; used in bubble tea.