Saturday, September 27, 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: 133

Number of Answers: 30

Points Needed for Genius: 93

Genius requires between 13 and 27 words. You need at least an 8-letter word to reach genius. If you don't get the pangram, you need 80% of the total points to reach genius. If you get the pangram, you only need 66% 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 133 was in the 31st percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there was a score this low was on September 19, 2025.
The highest score ever was 537 on January 22, 2021.
The lowest score ever was 47 on March 27, 2023.

This puzzle's 30 possible answers rank it in the 25th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there were fewer answers than this was on September 18, 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 an 8-letter word for genius.
The last time this happened was on September 19, 2025.

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 213
  • loll 203
  • toot 196
  • naan 180
  • nana 180
  • lilt 144
  • till 144
  • tilt 144
  • mama 139
  • mamma 139
  • nene 139
  • tint 139
  • acacia 133
  • acai 133
  • onto 130
  • toon 130
  • onion 126
  • anal 122
  • anon 121
  • dodo 118
  • tact 118
  • olio 116
  • boob 115
  • booboo 115
  • baba 114
  • papa 113
  • poop 113
  • lull 111
  • lulu 111
  • call 109
  • calla 109
  • mitt 108
  • mono 107
  • moon 107
  • ratatat 107
  • tart 107
  • tartar 107
  • tutu 107
  • allay 106
  • ally 106
  • attar 106
  • cocci 106
  • tattoo 106
  • ammo 105
  • loon 105
  • momma 105
  • tatty 105
  • epee 101
  • peep 101
  • roar 100


How long are words in the Bee?

There have been 107,305 answers ever accepted in the Bee - with 10,801 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*:

  • ceil
  • ceili
  • cilice
  • cline
  • cyclicly
  • cyclin
  • cymlin
  • elemi
  • elmy
  • encyclic
  • inly
  • licence
  • licencee
  • limen
  • limey
  • limnic
  • limy
  • lineny
  • liney
  • linin
  • linn
  • linney
  • linny
  • liny
  • lycee
  • melic
  • mell
  • micell
  • micelle
  • mille
  • millieme
  • millime
  • milline
  • minimill
  • mycele
  • myeline
  • myelinic
  • nellie
  • nelly
  • nielli
  • nill
  • yeelin
  • yill
  • ylem

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

cell

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A single-room dwelling for a hermit.
  2. A small monastery or nunnery dependent on a larger religious establishment.
  3. A small room in a monastery or nunnery accommodating one person.
  4. A room in a prison or jail for one or more inmates.
  5. Each of the small hexagonal compartments in a honeycomb.
  6. Any of various chambers in a tissue or organism having specific functions.
  7. The discal cell of the wing of a lepidopteran insect.
  8. Specifically, any of the supposed compartments of the brain, formerly thought to be the source of specific mental capacities, knowledge, or memories.
  9. A section or compartment of a larger structure.
  10. Any small dwelling; a remote nook, a den.
  11. A device which stores electrical power; used either singly or together in batteries; the basic unit of a battery.
  12. The basic unit of a living organism, consisting of a quantity of protoplasm surrounded by a cell membrane, which is able to synthesize proteins and replicate itself.
  13. A small thunderstorm, caused by convection, that forms ahead of a storm front.
  14. The minimal unit of a cellular automaton that can change state and has an associated behavior.
  15. In FreeCell-type games, a space where one card can be placed.
  16. A small group of people forming part of a larger organization, often an outlawed one.
  17. (communication) A short, fixed-length packet as in asynchronous transfer mode.
  18. (communication) A region of radio reception that is a part of a larger radio network.
  19. A three-dimensional facet of a polytope.
  20. The unit in a statistical array (a spreadsheet, for example) where a row and a column intersect.
  21. The space between the ribs of a vaulted roof.
  22. A cella.
  23. An area of an insect wing bounded by veins
verb
  1. To place or enclose in a cell.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A cellular phone.

celli

No Definition Found.

cicely

noun
  1. Myrrhis odorata, a plant in the genus Myrrhis, in the family Apiaceae.
  2. Sweetroot, any of several plants in the genus Osmorhiza

clemency

noun
  1. The gentle or kind exercise of power; leniency, mercy; compassion in judging or punishing.
  2. A pardon, commutation, or similar reduction, removal, or postponement of legal penalties by an executive officer of a state.
  3. Mildness of weather.

clime

noun
  1. A particular region defined by its weather or climate.
  2. Climate.

clinic

noun
  1. A medical facility, such as a hospital, especially one for the treatment and diagnosis of outpatients.
  2. (by extension) A hospital session to diagnose or treat patients.
  3. A school, or a session of a school or class, in which medicine or surgery is taught by the examination and treatment of patients in the presence of the pupils.
  4. A group practice of several physicians.
  5. A meeting for the diagnosis of problems, or training, on a particular subject.
  6. A temporary office arranged on a regular basis to allow politicians to meet their constituents.
  7. A series of workouts used to build skills of practitioners regardless of team affiliation.
  8. One confined to bed by sickness.
  9. One who receives baptism on a sickbed.

cycle

noun
  1. An interval of space or time in which one set of events or phenomena is completed.
  2. A complete rotation of anything.
  3. A process that returns to its beginning and then repeats itself in the same sequence.
  4. The members of the sequence formed by such a process.
  5. In musical set theory, an interval cycle is the set of pitch classes resulting from repeatedly applying the same interval class to the starting pitch class.
  6. A series of poems, songs or other works of art.
  7. A programme on a washing machine, dishwasher, or other such device.
  8. A pedal-powered vehicle, such as a unicycle, bicycle, or tricycle, or a motorized vehicle that has either two or three wheels.
  9. A single, a double, a triple, and a home run hit by the same player in the same game.
  10. A closed walk or path, with or without repeated vertices allowed.
  11. (algebraic topology) A chain whose boundary is zero.
  12. An imaginary circle or orbit in the heavens; one of the celestial spheres.
  13. An age; a long period of time.
  14. An orderly list for a given time; a calendar.
  15. One entire round in a circle or a spire.
  16. A discharge of a taser.
verb
  1. To ride a bicycle or other cycle.
  2. To go through a cycle or to put through a cycle.
  3. To turn power off and back on
  4. To maintain a team's possession of the puck in the offensive zone by handling and passing the puck in a loop from the boards near the goal up the side boards and passing to back to the boards near the goal

cyclic

adjective
  1. Characterized by, or moving in cycles, or happening at regular intervals.
  2. (of a compound) Having chains of atoms arranged in a ring.
  3. Having parts arranged in a whorl.
  4. (of a group) Being generated by only one element.
  5. (of a polygon) Able to be inscribed in a circle.

eely

No Definition Found.

icicle

noun
  1. A drooping, tapering shape of ice.

icily

No Definition Found.

illy

No Definition Found.

inclemency

No Definition Found.

incline

noun
  1. A slope.
verb
  1. To bend or move (something) out of a given plane or direction, often the horizontal or vertical.
  2. To slope.
  3. (chiefly in the passive) To tend to do or believe something, or move or be moved in a certain direction, away from a point of view, attitude, etc.

lenience

noun
  1. Leniency: mercy or forgiveness in the assignment of punishment.

leniency

noun
  1. The quality of mercy or forgiveness, especially in the assignment of punishment as in a court case.
  2. An act of being lenient.

lice

noun
  1. A small parasitic wingless insect of the order Psocodea.
  2. (not usually used in plural form) A contemptible person; one who is deceitful or causes harm.

lien

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A tendon.
  2. A right to take possession of a debtor’s property as security until a debt or duty is discharged.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. (possibly obsolete) The spleen.

lily

noun
  1. Any of several flowers in the genus Lilium of the family Liliaceae, which includes a great many ornamental species.
  2. Any of several species of herbaceous flower which may or may not resemble the genus Lilium in some way, and which are not closely related to it or each other.
  3. The flower used as a heraldic charge; also commonly used to describe the fleur-de-lis.
  4. The end of a compass needle that should point north, traditionally often ornamented with the figure of a lily or fleur-de-lis.
  5. (usually in the plural) A royal spade in auction bridge.
  6. The thirtieth Lenormand card, representing calmness and maturity.
adjective
  1. White (as a racial epithet).

lime

Etymology 1

noun
  1. Any inorganic material containing calcium, usually calcium oxide (quicklime) or calcium hydroxide (slaked lime).
  2. Any gluey or adhesive substance; something which traps or captures someone; sometimes a synonym for birdlime.
verb
  1. To treat with calcium hydroxide or calcium oxide (lime).
  2. To smear with birdlime.
  3. To apply limewash.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A deciduous tree of the genus Tilia, especially Tilia × europaea; the linden tree, or its wood.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. Any of several green citrus fruit, somewhat smaller and sharper-tasting than a lemon.
  2. Any of the trees that bear limes, especially Key lime, Citrus aurantiifolia.
  3. A brilliant, sometimes yellowish, green colour associated with the fruits of a lime tree.
  4. A fan fiction story which contains sexual references, but stops short of full, explicit descriptions of sexual activity (coined by analogy with lemon).
adjective
  1. Containing lime or lime juice.
  2. Having the aroma or flavor of lime.
  3. Lime-green.

Etymology 4

verb
  1. To hang out/socialize in an informal, relaxed environment, especially with friends, for example at a party or on the beach.

Etymology 5

noun
  1. A leash.

limn

verb
  1. To draw or paint; to delineate.
  2. To illuminate, as a manuscript; to decorate with gold or some other bright colour.

line

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A path through two or more points (compare ‘segment’); a continuous mark, including as made by a pen; any path, curved or straight.
  2. A rope, cord, string, or thread, of any thickness.
  3. A hose or pipe, of any size.
  4. Direction, path.
  5. The wire connecting one telegraphic station with another, a telephone or internet cable between two points: a telephone or network connection.
  6. A clothesline.
  7. A letter, a written form of communication.
  8. A connected series of public conveyances, as a roadbed or railway track; and hence, an established arrangement for forwarding merchandise, etc.
  9. A trench or rampart, or the non-physical demarcation of the extent of the territory occupied by specified forces.
  10. The exterior limit of a figure or territory: a boundary, contour, or outline; a demarcation.
  11. A long tape or ribbon marked with units for measuring; a tape measure.
  12. A measuring line or cord.
  13. That which was measured by a line, such as a field or any piece of land set apart; hence, allotted place of abode.
  14. A threadlike crease or wrinkle marking the face, hand, or body; hence, a characteristic mark.
  15. Lineament; feature; figure (of one's body).
  16. A more-or-less straight sequence of people, objects, etc., either arranged as a queue or column and often waiting to be processed or dealt with, or arranged abreast of one another in a row (and contrasted with a column), as in a military formation.
  17. The regular infantry of an army, as distinguished from militia, guards, volunteer corps, cavalry, artillery etc.
  18. A series or succession of ancestors or descendants of a given person; a family or race; compare lineage.
  19. A small amount of text. Specifically:
  20. Course of conduct, thought, occupation, or policy; method of argument; department of industry, trade, or intellectual activity.
  21. The official, stated position (or set of positions) of an individual or group, particularly a political or religious faction.
  22. A set of products or services sold by a business, or by extension, the business itself.
  23. A number of shares taken by a jobber.
  24. A measure of length:
  25. A maxwell, a unit of magnetic flux.
  26. (1800s, with "the") The batter’s box.
  27. The position in which the fencers hold their swords.
  28. Proper relative position or adjustment (of parts, not as to design or proportion, but with reference to smooth working).
  29. A small path-shaped portion or serving of a powdery illegal drug, especially cocaine.
  30. Instruction; doctrine.
  31. Population of cells derived from a single cell and containing the same genetic makeup.
  32. (perfusion line) a set composed of a spike, a drip chamber, a clamp, a Y-injection site, a three-way stopcock and a catheter.
  33. A group of forwards that play together.
  34. A vascular catheter.
verb
  1. To place (objects) into a line (usually used with "up"); to form into a line; to align.
  2. To place persons or things along the side of for security or defense; to strengthen by adding; to fortify.
  3. To form a line along.
  4. To mark with a line or lines, to cover with lines.
  5. To represent by lines; to delineate; to portray.
  6. To read or repeat line by line.
  7. To hit a line drive; to hit a line drive which is caught for an out. Compare fly and ground.
  8. To track (wild bees) to their nest by following their line of flight.
  9. To measure.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. Flax; linen, particularly the longer fiber of flax.
verb
  1. To cover the inner surface of (something), originally especially with linen.
  2. To reinforce (the back of a book) with glue and glued scrap material such as fabric or paper.
  3. To fill or supply (something), as a purse with money.

Etymology 3

verb
  1. (of a dog) To copulate with, to impregnate.

linemen

noun
  1. A person who installs and repairs overhead cables (either power or telephone); a linesman
  2. A player who specializes in play at the line of scrimmage

linen

noun
  1. Thread or cloth made from flax fiber.
  2. Domestic textiles, such as tablecloths, bedding, towels, underclothes, etc., that are made of linen or linen-like fabrics of cotton or other fibers; linens.
  3. A light beige colour, like that of linen cloth undyed.
adjective
  1. Made from linen cloth or thread.
  2. Having the colour linen, light beige.

melee

noun
  1. A battle fought at close range; hand-to-hand combat; brawling.
  2. A noisy, confused or tumultuous fight, argument or scrap.
  3. Any any confused, disorganised, disordered or chaotic situation.
  4. Lively contention or debate, skirmish.
  5. A cavalry exercise in which two groups of riders try to cut paper plumes off the helmets of their opponents, the contest continuing until no member of one group retains his plume.
  6. Small cut and polished gemstones sold in lots.
verb
  1. To physically hit in close quarters, as opposed to shooting, blowing up, or other ranged means of damage. Often refers to the usage of a hand-to-hand weapon.

mile

noun
  1. The international mile: a unit of length precisely equal to 1.609344 kilometers established by treaty among Anglophone nations in 1959, divided into 5,280 feet or 1,760 yards.
  2. Any of several customary units of length derived from the 1593 English statute mile of 8 furlongs, equivalent to 5,280 feet or 1,760 yards of various precise values.
  3. Any of many customary units of length derived from the Roman mile (mille passus) of 8 stades or 5,000 Roman feet.
  4. The Scandinavian mile: a unit of length precisely equal to 10 kilometers defined in 1889.
  5. Any of many customary units of length from other measurement systems of roughly similar values, as the Chinese (里) or Arabic mile (al-mīl).
  6. (travel) An airline mile in a frequent flier program.
  7. Any similarly large distance.
  8. A race of 1 mile's length; a race of around 1 mile's length (usually 1500 or 1600 meters)
  9. One mile per hour, as a measure of speed.

mill

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A grinding apparatus for substances such as grains, seeds, etc.
  2. The building housing such a grinding apparatus.
  3. A machine used for expelling the juice, sap, etc., from vegetable tissues by pressure, or by pressure in combination with a grinding, or cutting process.
  4. A machine for grinding and polishing.
  5. The raised or ridged edge or surface made in milling anything, such as a coin or screw.
  6. A manufacturing plant for paper, steel, textiles, etc.
  7. A building housing such a plant.
  8. An establishment that handles a certain type of situation or procedure routinely, or produces large quantities of an item without much regard to quality, such as a divorce mill, a puppy mill, etc.
  9. An institution awarding educational certificates not officially recognised
  10. An engine.
  11. A boxing match, fistfight.
  12. (die sinking) A hardened steel roller with a design in relief, used for imprinting a reversed copy of the design in a softer metal, such as copper.
  13. An excavation in rock, transverse to the workings, from which material for filling is obtained.
  14. A passage underground through which ore is shot.
  15. A milling cutter.
  16. A treadmill.
  17. A typewriter used to transcribe messages received.
verb
  1. To grind or otherwise process in a mill or other machine.
  2. To shape, polish, dress or finish using a machine.
  3. To engrave one or more grooves or a pattern around the edge of (a cylindrical object such as a coin).
  4. (followed by around, about, etc.) To move about in an aimless fashion.
  5. To cause to mill, or circle around.
  6. (of air-breathing creatures) To swim underwater.
  7. (of a whale) To swim suddenly in a new direction.
  8. To beat; to pound.
  9. To pass through a fulling mill; to full, as cloth.
  10. To roll (steel, etc.) into bars.
  11. To make (drinking chocolate) frothy, as by churning.
  12. To undergo hulling.
  13. To take part in a fistfight; to box.
  14. To fill (a winze or interior incline) with broken ore, to be drawn out at the bottom.
  15. (thieves' cant) To commit burglary.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. An obsolete coin worth one thousandth of a US dollar, or one tenth of a cent.
  2. One thousandth part, particularly in millage rates of property tax.

Etymology 3

noun
  1. An angular mil, a unit of angular measurement equal to 1⁄6400 of a complete circle. At 1000 metres one mil subtends about one metre (0.98 m). Also 1⁄6000 and 1⁄6300 are used in other countries.
  2. A unit of measurement equal to 1⁄1000 of an inch, usually used for thin objects, such as sheets of plastic.
  3. A former subdivision (1/1000) of the Maltese lira
  4. (plural "mil") Abbreviation of million.
noun
  1. A unit of measure of capacity, being one thousandth of a litre. Symbol: ml

Etymology 4

noun
  1. A line of three matching pieces in nine men's morris and related games.

Etymology 5

noun
  1. (trading card games) Discarding a card from one's deck.
  2. (trading card games) A strategy centered on depleting the opponent's deck.
verb
  1. (trading card games) To move (a card) from a deck to the discard pile.
  2. (Hearthstone) To destroy (a card) due to having a full hand.

myelin

noun
  1. A white, fatty material, composed of lipids and lipoproteins, that surrounds the axons of nerves.

nicely

adverb
  1. Fastidiously; carefully.
  2. Precisely; with fine discernment or judgement.
  3. Pleasantly; satisfactorily.

yell

Etymology 1

noun
  1. A shout.
  2. A phrase to be shouted.
verb
  1. Shout; holler; make a loud sound with the voice.
  2. To convey by shouting
  3. To tell someone off (in a loud and angry manner)

Etymology 2

adjective
  1. Dry (of cow)