Today's letters are below. The center letter, A, must be in every word.
Welcome, puzzlers! This letter set asks you to lean on A and weave through a very handy mix of vowels and consonants.
29 words · 116 points · 1 pangram
Hint 1: Word grid (first letter by word length)
How many words start with each letter, by length.
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 8 | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 3 | 2 | 2 | - | 7 |
| H | 1 | 3 | 1 | - | 5 |
| N | 4 | 1 | - | - | 5 |
| P | 2 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 9 |
| Y | 1 | 2 | - | - | 3 |
Hint 2: Two-letter starts
AE-1 · AH-1 · AN-4 · AP-1 · HA-2 · HE-2 · HY-1 · NA-4 · NE-1 · PA-7 · PE-1 · PO-1 · YA-2 · YE-1
Hint 3: Pangram first letters
P (8 letters)
Show the pangrams
PAYPHONE
Show all 29 answers
A aeon, ahoy, annoy, anon, anyhoo, anyone, apnea
H happen, happy, heap, henna, hyena
N naan, nana, nanny, nape, neap
P paean, pane, papa, papaya, pappy, payee, payphone, peahen, poppa
Y yahoo, yappy, yeah
Pangrams are in bold.
Spelling Bee deep dive
More about today's puzzle. Everything in this section can include the answer.
Ranks and point targets
Today's puzzle is worth 116 points in total. These are the usual rank targets, worked out as a share of the total.
| Rank | Points |
|---|---|
| Beginner | 0 |
| Good Start | 2 |
| Moving Up | 6 |
| Good | 9 |
| Solid | 17 |
| Nice | 29 |
| Great | 46 |
| Amazing | 58 |
| Genius | 81 |
| Queen Bee | 116 |
Longest words (spoiler)
The longest answer is PAYPHONE, at 8 letters.
What every answer means (spoiler)
- aeon: Commonwealth standard spelling of eon.
- ahoy: An utterance of this interjection.
- annoy: (transitive) To disturb or irritate, especially by continued or repeated acts; to bother with unp...
- anon: An anonymous person, traditionally especially a published author but now especially an internet r...
- anyhoo: (humorous, informal or dialectal) anyhow
- anyone
- apnea: (pathology) The cessation of breathing, most often in reference to transient instances thereof du...
- happen: (intransitive) To occur or take place.
- happy: Having a feeling arising from a consciousness of well-being or of enjoyment; enjoying good of any...
- heap: A pile or mass; a collection of things laid in a body, or thrown together so as to form an elevat...
- henna: (countable, uncountable) A reddish plant substance, prepared from the dried leaves of this plant,...
- hyena: Any of the medium-sized to large feliform carnivores of the family Hyaenidae, native to Africa an...
- naan: A type of round, flat bread baked in a tandoor popular in South and Central Asian cuisine.
- nana: (term of endearment) One's grandmother.
- nanny: A child's nurse.
- nape: (anatomy) The back part of the neck.
- neap: Designating a tide which occurs just after the first and third quarters of the moon, when there i...
- paean: (by extension) Any loud and joyous song; a song of triumph.
- pane: An individual sheet of glass in a window, door, etc.
- papa: (often childish) Dad, daddy, father; a familiar or old-fashioned term of address to one’s father.
- papaya: The fruit of this tree.
- pappy: (colloquial, regional) A father.
- payee: one to whom money is paid.
- payphone: A public telephone that requires prepayment to operate, generally via the insertion of coins or a...
- peahen: A female peafowl.
- poppa: (US, colloquial, sometimes childish) father, papa.
- yahoo: (transitive, intransitive, informal) To give a cry of yahoo.
- yappy: Very talkative; talking foolishly or at length.
- yeah: Pronunciation spelling of year. [A period of time akin to the time taken for the Earth to undergo...
Play today's Spelling Bee at The New York Times
More hints for October 27, 2026
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