Game Summary

Table of Contents

As you scroll down this page, the clues get progressively more revealing. So scroll slowly!

1. Spelling Bee Grid
2. Two-Letter List (2LL) Hints
3. Three-Letter List (3LL) Hints
4. Extra Letter Hints (Incrementally Revealing) 🤯
5. Today's Complete Solution
6. Answer Definitions

If you're just here for a list of NYT Spelling Bee answers, Jump down to the answers ↓ (Spoiler Alert!).

Spelling Bee Grid

The following table shows the standard Spelling Bee summary grid, which lists word lengths across the top and letters down the left-hand side. The cell where the word lengths and letters intersect displays the number of words in today's puzzle with the corresponding first letter and word length.

Two-Letter List (2LL) Hints

The following list shows the number of solution words that begin with the corresponding two letters.

Three-Letter List (3LL) Hints

The following list shows the number of solution words that begin with the corresponding three letters.

Extra Letter Hints (Incrementally Revealing)

The table below lists all of the solutions to today's puzzle, but they're concealed. You can click the plus button (+) to reveal additional letters, one-by-one.

Concealed definitions are provided as additional clues. You can toggle concealment of the definitions by clicking on the concealer bar or the text that appears when the definition is visible.

Pangrams are marked with a dagger symbol (^†).

Today's Complete Solution

The words that follow are a complete listing of all acceptable words in today's New York Time Spelling Bee puzzle.

Next to the answer word you'll see the two-letter reference (2L Ref) in parentheses. We added that 2L Ref for easier translation of the spoiler-avoidant language you see on the Spelling Bee Forum and Twitter. The 2L Ref signifies a word's two start letters followed by the total number of letters in the word.

• comeback^†  (CO8)
• aback  (AB5)
• acme  (AC4)
• back  (BA4)
• backcomb  (BA8)
• became  (BE6)
• beck  (BE4)
• become  (BE6)
• bocce  (BO5)
• bock  (BO4)
• cacao  (CA5)
• cake  (CA4)
• came  (CA4)
• cameo  (CA5)
• camo  (CA4)
• coca  (CO4)
• cock  (CO4)
• cocoa  (CO5)
• coke  (CO4)
• coma  (CO4)
• comb  (CO4)
• combo  (CO5)
• come  (CO4)
• comma  (CO5)
• cook  (CO4)
• cookbook  (CO8)
• emcee  (EM5)
• mace  (MA4)
• mecca  (ME5)
• mock  (MO4)

Answer Definitions

• comeback^† (noun): A return (e.g. to popularity, success, etc.) after an extended period of obscurity or underperformance.
• aback (adverb): Toward the rear; Phrase: 'to be taken ____', meaning 'surprised'.
• acme (noun): A high point: the highest point of any range, the most developed stage of any process, or the culmination of any field or historical period.
• back (adjective): At or near the rear.
• backcomb (verb): To hold hair and comb it towards the head, thus giving it a bushier look.
• became (verb): simple past tense of become
• beck (noun): A stream or small river.
• become (verb): begin to be; turn into.
• bocce (noun): A game, similar to bowls or pétanque, played on a long, narrow, dirt-covered court
• bock (noun): A strong dark beer brewed in the fall and aged through the winter for spring consumption.
• cacao (noun): A tree, Theobroma cacao, whose seed is used to make chocolate.
• cake (noun): A rich, sweet dessert food, typically made of flour, sugar, and eggs and baked in an oven, and often covered in icing.
• came (verb): simple past tense of come
• cameo (noun): A piece of jewelry, etc., carved in relief.
• camo (noun): A pattern on clothing consisting of irregularly shaped patches that are either greenish/brownish, brownish/whitish, or bluish/whitish, as used by ground combat forces.
• coca (noun): Any of the four cultivated plants which belong to the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America.
• cock (noun): A male bird, especially: A rooster: a male gallinaceous bird, especially a male domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus). A cock pigeon.
• cocoa (noun): The dried and partially fermented fatty seeds of the cacao tree from which chocolate is made.
• coke (noun): Solid residue from roasting coal in a coke oven; used principally as a fuel and in the production of steel and formerly as a domestic fuel.
• coma (noun): A state of unconsciousness from which one may not wake up, usually induced by some form of trauma.
• comb (noun): A toothed implement: A toothed implement for grooming the hair or (formerly) for keeping it in place. A machine used in separating choice cotton fibers from worsted cloth fibers. The toothed plate at the top and bottom of an escalator that prevents objects getting trapped between the moving stairs and fixed landings. A toothed tool used for chasing screws on work in a lathe; a chaser. The notched scale of a wire micrometer. The collector of an electrical machine, usually resembling a comb. A toothed plate used for creating wells in agar gels for electrophoresis. A toothed wooden pick used to push the weft thread tightly against the previous pass of thread to create a tight weave. One of a pair of peculiar organs on the base of the abdomen in scorpions, with which they comb substrate.
• combo (noun): A small musical group.
• come (verb): To move from further away to nearer to.
• comma (noun): English Wikipedia has an article on:commaWikipedia The punctuation mark ⟨,⟩ used to indicate a set of parts of a sentence or between elements of a list.
• cook (noun): A person who prepares food.
• cookbook (noun): A book or an encyclopedia of recipes and cookery tips.
• emcee (noun): Alternative form of MC in its senses as Master of ceremonies. A rapper.
• mace (noun): A heavy fighting club.
• mecca (noun): Alternative form of Mecca; a place to which a group of people (for example shoppers) are drawn.
• mock (noun): An imitation, usually of lesser quality.