The Unofficial Hive

NYT Spelling Bee answers & analysis

ACIRTYD

Thursday, July 16, 2026

Edited by Sam Ezersky

Words
37
Points
166
Genius
116
Pangram
1

Official answers

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Pangram highlighted. Click a word for its definition.

  • acid

    noun — A sour substance.

    adjective — Sour, sharp, or biting to the taste; tart; having the taste of vinegar.

    noun — Any of several classes of compound having the following properties:

    noun — Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)

    adjective — Sour-tempered.

    adjective — Of or pertaining to an acid; acidic.

    Appeared in 7 recorded puzzles.

  • acidic

    adjective — Having a pH less than 7, or being sour, or having the strength to neutralize alkalis, or turning a litmus paper red.

    adjective — Containing a high percentage of silica; opposed to basic.

    adjective — Of or relating to acid; having the character of an acid.

    Appeared in 7 recorded puzzles.

  • acidity

    noun — The quality or state of being acid

    noun — Sourness; tartness; sharpness to the taste

    noun — Excessive acid quality, as in gastric secretions.

    Appeared in 2 recorded puzzles.

  • acidy

    No cached definition. Look it up on Wiktionary.

    Appeared in 3 recorded puzzles.

  • acrid

    adjective — Sharp and harsh, or bitter and not to the taste.

    adjective — Causing heat and irritation.

    adjective — Caustic; bitter; bitterly irritating.

    Appeared in 2 recorded puzzles.

  • acridity

    No cached definition. Look it up on Wiktionary.

  • addict

    noun — A person who is addicted, especially to a harmful drug

    verb — To deliver (someone or something) following a judicial decision.

    noun — An adherent or fan (of something)

    verb — To devote (oneself) to a given activity, occupation, thing etc.

    verb — To bind (a person or thing) to the service of something.

    verb — To devote or pledge (oneself) to a given person, cause etc.

    Appeared in 5 recorded puzzles.

  • arcadia

    No cached definition. Look it up on Wiktionary.

    Appeared in 2 recorded puzzles.

  • arid

    adjective — Very dry.

    adjective — Devoid of value.

    adjective — Describing a very dry climate. Typically defined as less than 25 cm or 10 inches of rainfall annually.

    Appeared in 6 recorded puzzles.

  • aridity

    No cached definition. Look it up on Wiktionary.

  • caddy

    noun — One hired to assist another in playing the game of golf.

    verb — To serve as a caddy, carrying golf clubs etc.

    noun — A small box, can, or chest to keep things in.

    noun — A movable tray or other mechanism for holding, securing, and transporting a removable component within a piece of machinery or equipment.

    Appeared in 3 recorded puzzles.

  • card

    noun — A playing card.

    verb — To check IDs, especially against a minimum age requirement.

    noun — Material with embedded short wire bristles.

    verb — To use a carding device to disentangle the fibres of wool prior to spinning.

    noun — One of the officials appointed by the pope in the Roman Catholic Church, ranking only below the pope and the patriarchs, constituting the special college which elects the pope. (See Wikipedia article on Catholic cardinals.)

    noun — (in the plural) Any game using playing cards; a card game.

    Appeared in 3 recorded puzzles.

  • cardiac

    noun — A person with heart disease.

    adjective — Pertaining to the heart.

    noun — Heart disease.

    noun — A medicine that excites action in the stomach.

    adjective — Pertaining to the cardia.

    adjective — Exciting action in the heart, through the medium of the stomach; cordial; stimulant.

    Appeared in 2 recorded puzzles.

  • cicada

    noun — Any of several insects in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with small eyes wide apart on the head and transparent well-veined wings.

    Appeared in 7 recorded puzzles.

  • daddy

    noun — (usually childish) Father.

    verb — To father; to sire.

    noun — A male lover.

    noun — An informal term of address for a man.

    noun — A male juvenile delinquent in a reformatory who dominates the other inmates through threats and violence.

    Appeared in 10 recorded puzzles.

  • dairy

    noun — (also dairy products or dairy produce) Products produced from milk.

    noun — A place, often on a farm, where milk is processed and turned into products such as butter and cheese.

    adjective — Referring to products produced from milk.

    noun — A dairy farm.

    noun — A shop selling dairy products.

    noun — A corner store, superette or minimart.

    Appeared in 2 recorded puzzles.

  • dart

    noun — A pointed missile weapon, intended to be thrown by the hand, for example a short lance or javelin

    verb — To throw with a sudden effort or thrust; to hurl or launch.

    noun — Any sharp-pointed missile weapon, such as an arrow.

    noun — (sometimes figurative) Anything resembling such a missile; something that pierces or wounds like such a weapon.

    noun — A small object with a pointed tip at one end and feathers at the other, which is thrown at a target in the game of darts.

    noun — A dart-shaped target towed behind an aircraft to train shooters.

    Appeared in 3 recorded puzzles.

  • data

    noun — (plural: data) A measurement of something on a scale understood by both the recorder (a person or device) and the reader (another person or device). The scale is arbitrarily defined, such as from 1 to 10 by ones, 1 to 100 by 0.1, or simply true or false, on or off, yes, no, or maybe, etc.

    noun — (plural: data) A fact known from direct observation.

    noun — (plural: data) A premise from which conclusions are drawn.

    noun — (plural: datums) A fixed reference point, or a coordinate system.

    Appeared in 8 recorded puzzles.

  • diacritic

    noun — A special mark added to a letter to indicate a different pronunciation, stress, tone, or meaning.

    adjective — Distinguishing

    adjective — Denoting a distinguishing mark applied to a letter or character.

    Appeared in 2 recorded puzzles.

  • diary

    noun — A daily log of experiences, especially those of the writer.

    verb — To keep a diary or journal.

    adjective — Lasting for one day.

    noun — A personal organizer or appointment diary.

    Appeared in 2 recorded puzzles.

  • dicta

    noun — An authoritative statement; a dogmatic saying; a maxim, an apothegm.

    noun — A judicial opinion expressed by judges on points that do not necessarily arise in the case, and are not involved in it.

    noun — The report of a judgment made by one of the judges who has given it.

    noun — An arbitrament or award.

    Appeared in 5 recorded puzzles.

  • didact

    No cached definition. Look it up on Wiktionary.

    Appeared in 5 recorded puzzles.

  • didactic

    noun — A treatise on teaching or education.

    adjective — Instructive or intended to teach or demonstrate, especially with regard to morality.

    adjective — Excessively moralizing.

    adjective — Teaching from textbooks rather than laboratory demonstration and clinical application.

    Appeared in 5 recorded puzzles.

  • dirt

    noun — Soil or earth.

    verb — To make foul or filthy; soil; befoul; dirty

    noun — A stain or spot (on clothes etc); any foreign substance that worsens appearance.

    noun — Previously unknown facts, or the invented "facts", about a person.

    noun — Meanness; sordidness.

    noun — In placer mining, earth, gravel, etc., before washing.

    Appeared in 3 recorded puzzles.

  • dirty

    verb — To make (something) dirty.

    adjective — Unclean; covered with or containing unpleasant substances such as dirt or grime.

    adverb — In a dirty manner.

    verb — To stain or tarnish (somebody) with dishonor.

    verb — To debase by distorting the real nature of (something).

    verb — To become soiled.

  • ditty

    noun — A short verse or tune.

    verb — To sing; to warble a little tune.

    noun — A saying or utterance, especially one that is short and frequently repeated.

    Appeared in 4 recorded puzzles.

  • drat

    verb — To damn or curse.

    interjection — Expressing anger, annoyance or frustration.

    Appeared in 3 recorded puzzles.

  • dray

    noun — A low horse-drawn cart, often without sides, and used especially for heavy loads.

    noun — A squirrel’s nest, built of twigs in a tree.

    noun — A kind of sledge or sled.

    noun — A possum’s nest, built of twigs and leaves in a tree.

    Appeared in 2 recorded puzzles.

  • dryad

    noun — In Greek myth, a female tree spirit.

    Appeared in 2 recorded puzzles.

  • dyad

    noun — A set of two elements treated as one; a pair.

    noun — Any set of two different pitch classes.

    noun — A pair of things standing in particular relation; dyadic relation.

    noun — An element, atom, or radical having a valence or combining power of two.

    noun — A secondary unit of organisation consisting of an aggregate of monads.

    noun — A tensor of order two and rank one.

    Appeared in 10 recorded puzzles.

  • radar

    noun — A method of detecting distant objects and determining their position, velocity, or other characteristics by analysis of sent radio waves (usually microwaves) reflected from their surfaces

    verb — To scan with radar, or as if with radar.

    noun — A type of system using such method, differentiated by platform, configuration, frequency, power, and other technical attributes.

    noun — A superior ability to detect something.

    noun — An installation of such a system or of the transmitting and receiving apparatus.

    Appeared in 7 recorded puzzles.

  • radii

    noun — A line segment between any point of a circle or sphere and its center.

    noun — The long bone in the forearm, on the side of the thumb.

    noun — The length of this line segment.

    noun — Anything resembling a radius, such as the spoke of a wheel, the movable arm of a sextant, or one of the radiating lines of a spider's web.

    noun — The lighter bone (or fused portion of bone) in the forelimb of an animal.

    noun — One of the major veins of the insect wing, between the subcosta and the media; the vein running along the costal edge of the discal cell.

    Appeared in 6 recorded puzzles.

  • raid

    noun — An attack or invasion for the purpose of making arrests, seizing property, or plundering

    noun — A quick hostile or predatory incursion or invasion in a battle.

    noun — A large group in a massively multiplayer online game, consisting of multiple parties who team up to defeat a powerful enemy.

    noun — An activity initiated at or towards the end of a live broadcast by the broadcaster that sends its viewers to a different broadcast, primarily intended to boost the viewership of the receiving broadcaster. This is frequently accompanied by a message in the form of a hashtag that is posted in the broadcast's chat by the viewers.

    verb — To lure from another; to entice away from.

    verb — To indulge oneself by taking from.

    Appeared in 6 recorded puzzles.

  • tardy

    noun — A piece of paper given to students who are late to class.

    verb — To make tardy.

    adjective — Late; overdue or delayed.

    noun — An instance of a student being marked as tardy by a teacher in his or her attendance sheet.

    adjective — Moving with a slow pace or motion; not swift.

    adjective — Ineffectual; slow-witted, slow to act, or dull.

  • tidy

    noun — A tabletop container for pens and stationery.

    verb — To make tidy; to neaten.

    adjective — Arranged neatly and in order.

    interjection — Expression of positive agreement, usually in reply to a question.

    noun — A cover, often of tatting, drawn work, or other ornamental work, for the back of a chair, the arms of a sofa, etc.

    noun — A child's pinafore.

    Appeared in 4 recorded puzzles.

  • triad

    noun — A grouping of three.

    noun — A word of three syllables.

    noun — A branch of a Chinese underground criminal society, mostly based in Hong Kong.

    noun — On a CRT display, a group of three neighbouring phosphor dots, coloured green, red, and blue.

    noun — A chord consisting of a root tone, the tone two degrees higher, and the tone four degrees higher in a given scale.

    Appeared in 3 recorded puzzles.

  • yard

    noun — A small, usually uncultivated area adjoining or (now especially) within the precincts of a house or other building.

    verb — To confine to a yard.

    noun — A unit of length equal to 3 feet in the US customary and British imperial systems of measurement, equal to precisely 0.9144 m since 1959 (US) or 1963 (UK).

    noun — 109, A short scale billion; a long scale thousand millions or milliard.

    noun — The property surrounding one's house, typically dominated by one's lawn.

    noun — An enclosed area designated for a specific purpose, e.g. on farms, railways etc.

    Appeared in 2 recorded puzzles.

Hints, no spoilers

Words by first two letters

  • ac×6
  • ad×1
  • ar×3
  • ca×3
  • ci×1
  • da×4
  • di×8
  • dr×3
  • dy×1
  • ra×3
  • ta×1
  • ti×1
  • tr×1
  • ya×1

Words by first letter and length

456789Σ
a 22231· 10
c 1111·· 4
d 671·11 16
r 12···· 3
t 12···· 3
y 1····· 1
Σ 12144421 37

The numbers

Genius today takes 116 points of 166 available. The average answer runs 5.3 letters.

Total points vs. all 382 recorded puzzles
31st percentile
Word count vs. all recorded puzzles
29th percentile

Word lengths, today vs. 17315 recorded answers

412 today34.6% all-time514 today22.8% all-time64 today19.9% all-time74 today12.1% all-time82 today6.3% all-time91 today2.6% all-time101.2% all-time110.3% all-time120.1% all-time130.0% all-time

History

Today's letters, last seen

LetterLast in a puzzleLast as center
a Monday, July 13, 2026 Friday, July 3, 2026
c Tuesday, July 14, 2026 Monday, July 6, 2026
d ● Thursday, July 9, 2026 Friday, April 24, 2026
i Wednesday, July 15, 2026 Thursday, June 25, 2026
r Tuesday, July 14, 2026 Saturday, June 20, 2026
t Tuesday, July 14, 2026 Tuesday, July 14, 2026
y Wednesday, July 8, 2026 Tuesday, June 16, 2026

Most common answers, all recorded puzzles

  1. noon 42
  2. naan 30
  3. nana 30
  4. onion 29
  5. toot 28
  6. loll 28
  7. mama 25
  8. mamma 25
  9. cocoon 23
  10. loon 23
  11. nene 23
  12. acacia 22
  13. acai 22
  14. bill 22
  15. neon 22
  16. none 22
  17. olio 22
  18. aria 21
  19. onto 21
  20. toon 21
  21. cancan 21
  22. canna 21
  23. lilt 20
  24. till 20
  25. tilt 20

Valid words the Bee rejected

Dictionary words the Bee never takes

Legitimate words (per the ENABLE list) that fit the letters but aren't official answers — usually judged too obscure.