Friday, September 12, 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: 74

Number of Answers: 19

Points Needed for Genius: 52

Genius requires between 8 and 17 words. You need at least a 6-letter word to reach genius. If you don't get the pangram, you need 88% of the total points to reach genius. If you get the pangram, you only need 63% 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 74 was in the 2nd percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there was a score this low was on March 4, 2025.
The highest score ever was 537 on January 22, 2021.
The lowest score ever was 47 on March 27, 2023.

This puzzle's 19 possible answers rank it in the 1st percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there were fewer answers than this was on August 5, 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 September 10, 2025.

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 212
  • loll 203
  • toot 195
  • naan 179
  • nana 179
  • lilt 144
  • till 144
  • tilt 144
  • nene 139
  • tint 138
  • mama 137
  • mamma 137
  • acacia 133
  • acai 133
  • onto 129
  • toon 129
  • onion 125
  • anal 121
  • anon 121
  • tact 117
  • dodo 116
  • olio 116
  • boob 114
  • booboo 114
  • baba 113
  • papa 113
  • poop 112
  • lull 111
  • lulu 111
  • call 109
  • calla 109
  • mitt 108
  • mono 107
  • moon 107
  • ratatat 107
  • tart 107
  • tartar 107
  • tutu 107
  • attar 106
  • cocci 106
  • allay 105
  • ally 105
  • tattoo 105
  • tatty 105
  • ammo 104
  • loon 104
  • momma 104
  • epee 100
  • peep 100
  • cancan 99


How long are words in the Bee?

There have been 106,688 answers ever accepted in the Bee - with 10,777 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*:

  • chinch
  • chink
  • cummin
  • huic
  • humic
  • kinin
  • kinnikinnick
  • mick
  • minikin
  • minium
  • mucin
  • muni
  • unchic
  • unci
  • uncini
  • unicum
  • unununium

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

chic

Etymology 1

noun
  1. Good form; style.
  2. A person with (a particular type of) chic.
adjective
  1. Elegant, stylish.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A kind of ritual buffoon or clown in Yucatec Maya culture.

chichi

Etymology 1

adjective
  1. Affectedly trendy; chic and stylish

Etymology 2

noun
  1. (Latin America, chiefly in the plural) A woman's breast.

chick

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A young bird.
  2. A young chicken.
  3. (term of endearment) A young child.
  4. A young, especially attractive, woman or teenage girl.
verb
  1. To sprout, as seed does in the ground; to vegetate.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A screen or blind made of finely slit bamboo and twine, hung in doorways or windows.

chin

Etymology 1

noun
  1. The bottom of a face, (specifically) the typically jutting jawline below the mouth.
  2. Talk.
  3. A lie, a falsehood.
  4. The ability to withstand being punched in the chin without being knocked out.
  5. The lower part of the front of an aircraft, below the nose.
  6. The bottom part of a mobile phone, below the screen.
verb
  1. To talk.
  2. To talk to or with (someone).
  3. To perform a chin-up (exercise in which one lifts one's own weight while hanging from a bar).
  4. To punch or hit (someone)'s chin (part of the body).
  5. To put or hold (a musical instrument) up to one's chin.
  6. To turn on or operate (a device) using one's chin; to select (a particular setting) using one's chin.
  7. To put one's chin on (something).
  8. To indicate or point toward (someone or something) with one's chin.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A chinchilla.

cinch

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A simple saddle girth used in Mexico.
  2. Something that is very easy to do.
  3. A firm hold.
verb
  1. To bring to certain conclusion.
  2. To tighten down.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A variety of auction pitch in which a draw to improve the hand is added, and the five of trumps (called "right Pedro") and the five of the same colour (called "left Pedro", and ranking between the five and the four of trumps) are each worth five. Fifty-one points make a game.
verb
  1. In the game of cinch, to protect (a trick) by playing a higher trump than the five.

cumin

noun
  1. The flowering plant Cuminum cyminum, in the family Apiaceae.
  2. Its aromatic long seed, used as a spice, notably in Indian, Middle Eastern, and Mexican cookery.

hick

Etymology 1

noun
  1. An awkward, naive, clumsy and/or rude country person.

Etymology 2

verb
  1. To hiccup

inch

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A unit of length equal to one twelfth of a foot, or exactly 2.54 centimetres.
  2. The amount of water which would cover a surface to the depth of an inch, used as a measurement of rainfall.
  3. The amount of an alcoholic beverage which would fill a glass or bottle to the depth of an inch.
  4. A very short distance.
verb
  1. (followed by a preposition) To advance very slowly, or by a small amount (in a particular direction).
  2. To drive by inches, or small degrees.
  3. To deal out by inches; to give sparingly.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A small island

kick

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A hit or strike with the leg, foot or knee.
  2. The action of swinging a foot or leg.
  3. Something that tickles the fancy; something fun or amusing.
  4. The removal of a person from an online activity.
  5. Any bucking motion of an object that lacks legs or feet.
  6. Piquancy.
  7. A stimulation provided by an intoxicating substance.
  8. A pass played by kicking with the foot.
  9. The distance traveled by kicking the ball.
  10. A recoil of a gun.
  11. Pocket.
  12. An increase in speed in the final part of a running race.
verb
  1. To strike or hit with the foot or other extremity of the leg.
  2. To make a sharp jerking movement of the leg, as to strike something.
  3. To direct to a particular place by a blow with the foot or leg.
  4. (with "off" or "out") To eject summarily.
  5. To forcibly remove a participant from an online activity.
  6. To overcome (a bothersome or difficult issue or obstacle); to free oneself of (a problem).
  7. To move or push suddenly and violently.
  8. (of a firearm) To recoil; to push by recoiling.
  9. To attack (a piece) in order to force it to move.
  10. To accelerate quickly with a few pedal strokes in an effort to break away from other riders.
  11. To show opposition or resistance.
  12. To work a press by impact of the foot on a treadle.
noun
  1. One who kicks.
  2. One who takes kicks.
  3. The kicking strap.
  4. An outboard motor.
  5. An unexpected situation, detail or circumstance, often unpleasant.
  6. An enticement for investors, e.g. warranty added to the investment contract.
  7. An unpaired card which is part of a pair, two pair, or three of a kind poker hand.
  8. Small text above a headline that indicates the topic of the story.
  9. The last one or two paragraphs of a story.
  10. A lighthearted or humorous item used to round off a news broadcast.
  11. A device that periodically displaces a newspaper from the print production line, to aid in gathering the newspapers into fixed-size bundles.
  12. A launch ramp.
  13. The fermenting mass of fruit that is the basis of pruno, or "prison wine".
  14. A relaxed party.
  15. A backlight positioned at an angle.
noun
  1. A particular type of Texan who is associated with country/western attire, attitudes and/or philosophy.
noun
  1. An introduction; something that leads into the beginning of something.
  2. A region of data at the beginning of a compact disc, holding the table of contents.
  3. A short phrase that begins the caption of a photograph.

Etymology 2

verb
  1. To die.

kimchi

noun
  1. A Korean dish made of vegetables, such as cabbage or radishes, that are salted, seasoned, and stored in sealed containers to undergo lactic acid fermentation.
  2. A Korean person.

kink

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A convulsive fit of coughing or laughter; a sonorous indraft of breath; a whoop; a gasp of breath caused by laughing, coughing, or crying.
verb
  1. To laugh loudly.
  2. To gasp for breath as in a severe fit of coughing.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A tight curl, twist, or bend in a length of thin material, hair etc.
  2. A difficulty or flaw that is likely to impede operation, as in a plan or system.
  3. An unreasonable notion; a crotchet; a whim; a caprice.
  4. Peculiarity or deviation in sexual behaviour or taste.
  5. A positive 1-soliton solution to the Sine–Gordon equation
verb
  1. To form a kink or twist.
  2. To be formed into a kink or twist.

mimic

noun
  1. A person who practices mimicry, or mime.
  2. An imitation.
verb
  1. To imitate, especially in order to ridicule.
  2. To take on the appearance of another, for protection or camouflage.
adjective
  1. Pertaining to mimicry; imitative.
  2. Mock, pretended.
  3. Imitative; characterized by resemblance to other forms; applied to crystals which by twinning resemble simple forms of a higher grade of symmetry.

mini

Etymology 1

adjective
  1. Miniature, tiny, small.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A miniskirt.
  2. A minicomputer.

minim

noun
  1. A half note, drawn as a semibreve with a stem.
  2. A unit of volume, in the Imperial and U.S. customary systems, 1/60 fluid drachm. Approximately equal to 1 drop, 62 μL or 0.9 grain (weight) of water.
  3. A short vertical stroke used in handwriting.
  4. Anything very minute; applied to animalcula and the like.
  5. The smallest kind of worker in a leaf-cutter ant colony.
  6. A little man or being; a dwarf.
  7. A small fish; a minnow.
  8. A short poetical encomium.

minimum

noun
  1. The lowest limit.
  2. The smallest amount.
  3. A period of minimum brightness or energy intensity (of a star).
  4. A lower bound of a set which is also an element of that set.
  5. The smallest member of a batch or sample or the lower bound of a probability distribution.
adjective
  1. To the lowest degree.

mink

noun
  1. (plural mink or minks) Any of various semi-aquatic, carnivorous mammals in the Mustelinae subfamily, similar to weasels, with dark fur, native to Europe and America, of which two species in different genera are extant: the American mink (Neovison vison) and the European mink (Mustela lutreola).
  2. (plural mink) The fur or pelt of a mink, used to make apparel.
  3. (plural minks) An article of clothing made of mink.
  4. (plural minks) An individual with poor personal hygiene; a smelly person.

munchkin

noun
  1. A domestic cat breed with short legs.
noun
  1. The empty space in the center of a donut.
  2. A small ball-shaped pastry, made in the same manner as a donut, roughly the size of the hole in a donut.
  3. (welfare) An income bracket where one is without benefits, even though benefits are available in the next lower and next higher brackets.
  4. A section of water for which no one has fishing rights that is completely surrounded by regions where various parties hold fishing rights.
noun
  1. A child.
  2. A person of very short stature.
  3. A player who mainly concentrates on increasing their character's power and capabilities.

nick

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A small cut in a surface.
  2. Senses connoting something small.
  3. Often in the expressions in bad nick and in good nick: condition, state.
  4. (law enforcement) A police station or prison.
verb
  1. To make a nick or notch in; to cut or scratch in a minor way.
  2. To fit into or suit, as by a correspondence of nicks; to tally with.
  3. To make a cut at the side of the face.
  4. To steal.
  5. (law enforcement) To arrest.

Etymology 2

verb
  1. To give or call (someone) by a nickname; to style.
noun
  1. A familiar, invented given name for a person or thing used instead of the actual name of the person or thing.
  2. A kind of byname that describes a person by a characteristic of that person.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. A nix or nixie.

unkink

verb
  1. To remove the kinks from.