Thursday, March 12, 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: 231

Number of Answers: 39

Points Needed for Genius: 162

Genius requires between 20 and 33 words. You need at least an 8-letter word to reach genius. If you don't get the pangram, you need 75% of the total points to reach genius. If you get the pangram, you only need 68% of the remaining points to reach genius.

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 231 was in the 75th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there was a score this high was on March 11, 2026.
The highest score ever was 537 on January 22, 2021.
The lowest score ever was 47 on March 27, 2023.

This puzzle's 39 possible answers rank it in the 49th percentile of all puzzles.
The last time there were fewer answers than this was on March 11, 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 an 8-letter word for genius.
The last time this happened was on March 04, 2026.

Today's puzzle has an average word length of 6.4.
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 234
  • loll 216
  • toot 211
  • nana 192
  • naan 192
  • tilt 152
  • till 152
  • lilt 152
  • nene 151
  • tint 148
  • mamma 148
  • mama 148
  • toon 141
  • onto 141
  • onion 141
  • acai 139
  • acacia 139
  • anon 131
  • anal 130
  • olio 126
  • papa 124
  • dodo 123
  • baba 123
  • tact 122
  • lulu 122
  • lull 122
  • poop 119
  • booboo 118
  • boob 118
  • mitt 117
  • moon 116
  • mono 116
  • cocci 116
  • loon 114
  • calla 114
  • call 114
  • tartar 113
  • tart 113
  • ratatat 113
  • tutu 112
  • tattoo 112
  • attar 112
  • momma 110
  • ammo 110
  • ally 110
  • allay 110
  • tatty 109
  • meme 108
  • roar 107
  • peep 106


How long are words in the Bee?

There have been 114,834 answers ever accepted in the Bee - with 10,935 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*:

  • cedi
  • ceil
  • ceiled
  • ceili
  • cepe
  • cilice
  • cine
  • clepe
  • cleped
  • cline
  • decile
  • edenic
  • icicled
  • inclip
  • inclipped
  • licence
  • licenced
  • licencee
  • lipidic
  • pedicel
  • pedicle
  • pedicled
  • pencel
  • pencilled
  • penicil
  • pice

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

cede

verb
  1. To give up; yield to another.
  2. To give way.

ceded

verb
  1. To give up; yield to another.
  2. To give way.

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.

celled

No Definition Found.

celli

No Definition Found.

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.

clip

Etymology 1

noun
  1. Something which clips or grasps; a device for attaching one object to another.
  2. An unspecified but normally understood as rapid speed or pace.
  3. An embrace.
  4. A frame containing a number of bullets which is intended to be inserted into the magazine of a firearm to allow for rapid reloading.
  5. A projecting flange on the upper edge of a horseshoe, turned up so as to embrace the lower part of the hoof; a toe clip or beak.
  6. A gaff or hook for landing the fish, as in salmon fishing.
verb
  1. To grip tightly.
  2. To fasten with a clip.
  3. To hug, embrace.
  4. To collect signatures, generally with the use of a clipboard.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. Something which has been clipped from a larger whole:
  2. An act of clipping, such as a haircut.
  3. The condition of something, its state.
  4. A blow with the hand (often in the set phrase clip round the ear)
verb
  1. To cut, especially with scissors or shears as opposed to a knife etc.
  2. To curtail; to cut short.
  3. To strike with the hand.
  4. To hit or strike, especially in passing.
  5. An illegal tackle: Throwing the body across the back of an opponent's leg or hitting him from the back below the waist while moving up from behind unless the opponent is a runner or the action is in close line play.
  6. To cut off a signal level at a certain maximum value.
  7. To discard (an occluded part of a model or scene) rather than waste resources on rendering it.
  8. (Of a camera, character model, etc.) To move (through or into) (a rendered object or barrier).
  9. To cheat, swindle, or fleece.
  10. To grab or take stealthily

clipped

verb
  1. To grip tightly.
  2. To fasten with a clip.
  3. To hug, embrace.
  4. To collect signatures, generally with the use of a clipboard.
verb
  1. To cut, especially with scissors or shears as opposed to a knife etc.
  2. To curtail; to cut short.
  3. To strike with the hand.
  4. To hit or strike, especially in passing.
  5. An illegal tackle: Throwing the body across the back of an opponent's leg or hitting him from the back below the waist while moving up from behind unless the opponent is a runner or the action is in close line play.
  6. To cut off a signal level at a certain maximum value.
  7. To discard (an occluded part of a model or scene) rather than waste resources on rendering it.
  8. (Of a camera, character model, etc.) To move (through or into) (a rendered object or barrier).
  9. To cheat, swindle, or fleece.
  10. To grab or take stealthily
adjective
  1. Having an end cut off; trimmed or cut back.
  2. (of speech) With each word pronounced separately and distinctly.
  3. Circumcised.

decide

verb
  1. To resolve (a contest, problem, dispute, etc.); to choose, determine, or settle
  2. To make a judgment, especially after deliberation
  3. To cause someone to come to a decision
  4. To cut off; to separate

decided

verb
  1. To resolve (a contest, problem, dispute, etc.); to choose, determine, or settle
  2. To make a judgment, especially after deliberation
  3. To cause someone to come to a decision
  4. To cut off; to separate
adjective
  1. Determined; resolute
  2. Clear; unmistakable

decline

noun
  1. Downward movement, fall.
  2. A sloping downward, e.g. of a hill or road.
  3. A weakening.
  4. A reduction or diminution of activity.
  5. The act of declining or refusing something.
verb
  1. To move downwards, to fall, to drop.
  2. To become weaker or worse.
  3. To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall.
  4. To cause to decrease or diminish.
  5. To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw.
  6. To refuse, forbear.
  7. (grammar, usually of substantives, adjectives and pronouns) To inflect for case, number and sometimes gender.
  8. (by extension) To run through from first to last; to repeat like a schoolboy declining a noun.
  9. To reject a penalty against the opposing team, usually because the result of accepting it would benefit the non-penalized team less than the preceding play.

declined

verb
  1. To move downwards, to fall, to drop.
  2. To become weaker or worse.
  3. To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall.
  4. To cause to decrease or diminish.
  5. To turn or bend aside; to deviate; to stray; to withdraw.
  6. To refuse, forbear.
  7. (grammar, usually of substantives, adjectives and pronouns) To inflect for case, number and sometimes gender.
  8. (by extension) To run through from first to last; to repeat like a schoolboy declining a noun.
  9. To reject a penalty against the opposing team, usually because the result of accepting it would benefit the non-penalized team less than the preceding play.

deice

No Definition Found.

deiced

No Definition Found.

deicide

noun
  1. The killing of a god or goddess; godslaughter.
  2. The killer of a god or goddess.
  3. The crucifixion of Jesus viewed as a crime.

dependence

noun
  1. The state of being dependent, of relying upon another.
  2. An irresistible physical or psychological need, especially for a chemical substance.

dice

Etymology 1

noun
  1. Gaming with one or more dice.
  2. A die.
  3. That which has been diced.
verb
  1. To play dice.
  2. To cut into small cubes.
  3. To ornament with squares, diamonds, or cubes.

Etymology 2

noun
  1. A regular polyhedron, usually a cube, with numbers or symbols on each side and used in games of chance.
  2. That which is, or might be, determined, by a throw of the die; hazard; chance.
  3. (plural also dies) An oblong chip fractured from a semiconductor wafer engineered to perform as an independent device or integrated circuit.

diced

verb
  1. To play dice.
  2. To cut into small cubes.
  3. To ornament with squares, diamonds, or cubes.

epic

Etymology 1

noun
  1. An extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, celebrating the feats of a deity, demigod (heroic epic), other legend or traditional hero.
  2. A series of events considered appropriate to an epic.
  3. In software development, a large or extended user story.
adjective
  1. Of, or relating to, an epic.
  2. Momentously heroic; grand in scale or character
  3. Extending beyond the usual or ordinary.

Etymology 2

adjective
  1. (of a morphism) That is an epimorphism.

epicene

noun
  1. An epicene word; preceded by the: the epicene words of a language as a class.
  2. An epicene person, whether biologically asexual, androgynous, hermaphrodite, or intersex; an androgyne, a hermaphrodite.
  3. (by extension) A transsexual; also, a transvestite.
  4. (by extension, usually derogatory) An effeminate man.
adjective
  1. Of or relating to a class of Greek and Latin nouns that may refer to males or females but have a fixed grammatical gender (feminine, masculine, neuter, etc.).
  2. Of or relating to nouns or pronouns in any language that have a single form for male and female referents.
  3. (by extension) Suitable for use regardless of sex; unisex.
  4. Of indeterminate sex, whether asexual, androgynous, hermaphrodite, or intersex; of a human face, intermediate in form between a man's face and a woman's face.
  5. (by extension) Indeterminate; mixed.
  6. (by extension, usually derogatory) Of a man: effeminate.

iced

Etymology 1

adjective
  1. With ice added.
  2. Very cold, but not necessarily containing ice.
  3. Covered with icing.

Etymology 2

verb
  1. To cool with ice, as a beverage.
  2. To become ice; to freeze.
  3. To make icy; to freeze.
  4. To murder.
  5. To cover with icing (frosting made of sugar and milk or white of egg); to frost; as cakes, tarts, etc.
  6. To put out a team for a match.
  7. To shoot the puck the length of the playing surface, causing a stoppage in play called icing.

icicle

noun
  1. A drooping, tapering shape of ice.

incidence

noun
  1. The act of something happening; occurrence.
  2. The extent or the relative frequency of something happening.
  3. The manner of falling; bearing or onus, as of a tax that falls unequally.
  4. The striking of radiation or a projectile upon a surface.
  5. A measure of the rate of new occurrence of a given medical condition in a population within a specified period of time.
  6. The falling of a point on a line, or a line on a plane.

incipience

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.

inclined

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.
adjective
  1. At an angle to the horizontal; slanted or sloped.
  2. Having a tendency, preference, likelihood, or disposition.

independence

noun
  1. The state or quality of being independent; freedom from dependence; exemption from reliance on, or control by others; self-subsistence or maintenance; direction of one's own affairs without interference.
  2. The state of having sufficient means for a comfortable livelihood.

lenience

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

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.

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").

pellicle

noun
  1. A thin skin or film.
  2. A skin or coating of proteins on the surface of meat to be smoked, improving the surface adhesion.
  3. Cuticle, the hard protective outer layer of certain life forms.
  4. The skin of a mushroom cap.
  5. The outermost layer of a mushroom, often used only for a surface that is viscid and easily peels off.
  6. The growth on the surface of a liquid culture.
  7. The photosensitive emulsion of photographic film.
  8. A thin plastic membrane used as a beam splitter or protective cover.

pence

noun
  1. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a copper coin worth 1/240 of a pound sterling or Irish pound before decimalisation. Abbreviation: d.
  2. In the United Kingdom, a copper coin worth 1/100 of a pound sterling. Abbreviation: p.
  3. In Ireland, a coin worth 1/100 of an Irish pound before the introduction of the euro. Abbreviation: p.
  4. In the US and Canada, a one-cent coin, worth 1/100 of a dollar. Abbreviation: ¢.
  5. In various countries, a small-denomination copper or brass coin.
  6. A unit of nail size, said to be either the cost per 100 nails, or the number of nails per penny. Abbreviation: d.
  7. Money in general.

pencil

noun
  1. A paintbrush.
  2. A writing utensil with a graphite (commonly referred to as lead) shaft, usually blended with clay, clad in wood, and sharpened to a taper.
  3. An aggregate or collection of rays of light, especially when diverging from, or converging to, a point.
  4. A family of geometric objects with a common property, such as the set of lines that pass through a given point in a projective plane.
  5. A small medicated bougie.
verb
  1. To write (something) using a pencil.
  2. To mark with, or as if with, a pencil.

penciled

verb
  1. To write (something) using a pencil.
  2. To mark with, or as if with, a pencil.

penicillin

noun
  1. Any of a group of narrow-spectrum antibiotics obtained from Penicillium molds or synthesized; they have a beta-lactam structure; most are active against gram-positive bacteria and used in the treatment of various infections and diseases.

picnic

noun
  1. An informal social gathering, usually in a natural outdoor setting, to which the participants bring their own food and drink.
  2. The meal eaten at such a gathering.
  3. An easy or pleasant task.
  4. An entertainment at which each person contributed some dish to a common table.
verb
  1. To take part in a picnic.

piece

noun
  1. A part of a larger whole, usually in such a form that it is able to be separated from other parts.
  2. A single item belonging to a class of similar items
  3. One of the figures used in playing chess, specifically a higher-value figure as distinguished from a pawn; by extension, a similar counter etc. in other games.
  4. A coin, especially one valued at less than the principal unit of currency.
  5. An artistic creation, such as a painting, sculpture, musical composition, literary work, etc.
  6. An article published in the press.
  7. An artillery gun.
  8. A gun.
  9. (short for hairpiece) A toupee or wig, especially when worn by a man.
  10. A slice or other quantity of bread, eaten on its own; a sandwich or light snack.
  11. A sexual encounter; from piece of ass or piece of tail
  12. (mildly, short for piece of crap/piece of shit) A shoddy or worthless object (usually applied to consumer products like vehicles or appliances).
  13. A cannabis pipe.
  14. Used to describe a pitch that has been hit but not well, usually either being caught by the opposing team or going foul. Usually used in the past tense with got.
  15. (sometimes derogatory) An individual; a person.
  16. A castle; a fortified building.
  17. A pacifier; a dummy.
  18. A distance.
  19. A structured practice row, often used for performance evaluation.
  20. An amount of work to be done at one time; a unit of piece work.
verb
  1. (usually with together) To assemble (something real or figurative).
  2. To make, enlarge, or repair, by the addition of a piece or pieces; to patch; often with out.
  3. To produce a work of graffiti more complex than a tag.

pieced

verb
  1. (usually with together) To assemble (something real or figurative).
  2. To make, enlarge, or repair, by the addition of a piece or pieces; to patch; often with out.
  3. To produce a work of graffiti more complex than a tag.