The Hive at a Glance
Tuesday’s New York Times Spelling Bee arrives with a generously stocked grid, a single pangram that doubles as a philosophy, and enough recurring suffix structures to keep even experienced solvers occupied well past their morning coffee. The seven letters in today’s hive are E, F, G, I, L, N, and the mandatory center letter is O. Every valid word must contain that O, must be at least four letters long, and must draw only from the seven available letters, which can be reused as freely as needed.
The puzzle carries a maximum score of 282 points and requires 197 points to reach the Genius threshold. With 65 verified answers, today’s grid ranks in the 95th percentile of all Spelling Bee puzzles by word count – a figure that should encourage rather than intimidate. The last time the puzzle offered more answers was May 3, 2026. Today is also a Bingo, meaning at least one valid word begins with each of the seven letters in the hive – a structural rarity that signals exceptional letter diversity across the solution set.
Today’s Pangram: LIFELONG
The single pangram is LIFELONG, an eight-letter adjective meaning “extending for the entire duration of life.” It uses all seven letters and earns a base score of 8 points plus the standard 7-point pangram bonus, for a combined haul of 15 points. LIFELONG is the structural key to Tuesday’s puzzle – finding it early not only delivers the largest single score in the grid but also confirms the complete letter inventory, which sharpens the search for every remaining word.
The word divides cleanly into a prefix and a root: LIFE plus LONG. Both halves are themselves valid answers in today’s hive. That nested relationship is characteristic of the Spelling Bee’s best-engineered grids, where the pangram functions as both reward and road map. Solvers who spot LONG early and then ask what four-letter extension the available letters allow will arrive at LIFELONG with satisfying speed.
Puzzle Statistics
Center letter: O
Outer letters: E, F, G, I, L, N
Total answers: 65
Maximum score: 282 points
Genius threshold: 197 points
Pangrams: 1 (LIFELONG)
Bingo: Yes
Average word length: 5.4 letters
Percentile rank by word count: 95th
Spelling Bee Answers for June 9, 2026: The Complete Word List
4-Letter Words – 26 words, 1 point each
FLOE, FLOG, FOIL, FOOL, GOLF, GONE, GONG, GOOF, GOON, INFO, LION, LOGE, LOGO, LOIN, LOLL, LONE, LONG, LOON, NEON, NOEL, NONE, NOON, OGEE, OGLE, OLEO, OLIO
5-Letter Words – 8 words, 5 points each
FELON, FOLIO, GOING, IGLOO, LINGO, LOGIN, OLLIE, ONION
6-Letter Words – 14 words, 6 points each
EGGNOG, GIGOLO, GOGGLE, GOOGLE, GOOGOL, LEGION, LOONIE, NOGGIN, NOOGIE, OFFING, OGLING, OILING, ONLINE, OOLONG
7-Letter Words – 12 words, 7 points each
FOGGING, FOILING, FOOLING, GOLFING, GONGING, GOOFING, LEONINE, LOGGING, LOLLING, LONGING, OFFLINE, ONGOING
8-Letter Words – 4 words, 8 points each (except pangram)
FLOGGING, GOGGLING, GOOGLING, LIFELONG (pangram – 15 points)
9-Letter Words – 1 word, 9 points
NONILLION
Full alphabetical list of all 65 accepted answers: EGGNOG, FELON, FLOE, FLOG, FLOGGING, FOGGING, FOIL, FOILING, FOLIO, FOOL, FOOLING, GIGOLO, GOGGLE, GOGGLING, GOING, GOLF, GOLFING, GONE, GONG, GONGING, GOOF, GOOFING, GOOGLE, GOOGLING, GOOGOL, GOON, IGLOO, INFO, LEGION, LEONINE, LIFELONG, LINGO, LION, LOGE, LOGGING, LOGIN, LOGO, LOIN, LOLL, LOLLING, LONE, LONG, LONGING, LOON, LOONIE, NEON, NOEL, NOGGIN, NONE, NONILLION, NOOGIE, NOON, OFFING, OFFLINE, OGEE, OGLE, OGLING, OILING, OLEO, OLIO, OLLIE, ONGOING, ONION, ONLINE, OOLONG
Tricky and Notable Words
NONILLION
The nine-letter outlier in today’s puzzle is NONILLION, a mathematical term for the number 10 to the power of 30 in the American short-scale system. It is one of the rarest word lengths to appear in the Spelling Bee and, at 9 points, is the second-most valuable entry after the pangram. Many solvers will never locate it without deliberately scanning for long N-O combinations. Knowing it exists is half the battle.
GOOGOL
A GOOGOL is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros – a quantity so immense it dwarfs the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe. Merriam-Webster notes that the word was coined in 1938 by nine-year-old Milton Sirotta, the nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner, who was searching for a name befitting an inconceivably large number. The familiar technology company borrowed a variant spelling of it decades later for its own name.
LEONINE
LEONINE means “of, relating to, or characteristic of a lion.” It arrives in today’s grid as a seven-letter answer requiring a non-obvious vowel chain – L, E, O, N, I, N, E – making it one of the more commonly missed words in Tuesday’s puzzle. Players who work the L-column methodically will find it, but those scanning by sound alone often bypass it entirely.
LOONIE
The LOONIE is the informal Canadian term for the one-dollar coin, named for the common loon depicted on its reverse face. It entered the Spelling Bee’s accepted word list some years ago and continues to catch players off guard who assume the puzzle excludes informal currency nicknames.
NOOGIE
A NOOGIE – the act of grinding one’s knuckles firmly against another person’s head, usually in mock-affectionate jest – is one of those words that feels too playful to exist in a formal dictionary, but does appear in several major lexicons. It is worth 6 points and is easily overlooked by players scanning only for conventional vocabulary.
LOGE
LOGE refers to the front section of the first balcony in a theater, or to an upscale seating area in a concert hall or sports venue. It is a four-letter word that earns only a single point but trips up many solvers unfamiliar with theatrical architecture terminology.
OGEE
An OGEE is an S-shaped double curve, commonly seen in classical architecture and distillation equipment. It is another four-letter sleeper that rewards players with a broader decorative arts vocabulary.
OLIO
OLIO is a rich Spanish stew, or more broadly, a miscellaneous mixture or medley. It appears frequently enough in the Spelling Bee that experienced players treat it as a reliable target whenever O, L, and I appear together in a hive.
FOLIO
A FOLIO is a leaf of a book or manuscript, or a large-format volume produced from sheets folded once. The word carries centuries of printing history and appears in some of the most significant documents in the English literary canon.
GIGOLO
A GIGOLO is a man maintained in a sexual or romantic relationship by a partner, typically an older woman, often in exchange for companionship or escort services. The word entered English from French in the early twentieth century and earns 6 points today.
Solving Strategy for Today’s Puzzle
Tuesday’s grid rewards systematic suffix exploration more than vocabulary breadth. The letter set naturally produces a large family of -ING words: FLOGGING, FOGGING, FOILING, FOOLING, GOLFING, GONGING, GOOFING, GOOGLING, LOGGING, LOLLING, LONGING, OGLING, OILING, ONGOING. Players who identify the base verb first and then extend it with -ING will unlock a substantial portion of the 7-point tier before hunting for more elusive entries.
The double-O construction – LOON, NOON, GOON, FOOL, GOOF – is another productive early cluster. From LONG, a solver can naturally extrapolate LONGING. From GOOF comes GOOFING. From LOG come LOGO and LOGGING. Working methodically through each available consonant as a starting letter and pairing it with the double-O construction unlocks a disproportionate share of the solution set quickly. The F-column alone contains ten answers, making it the most fertile starting letter in today’s puzzle.
For players chasing the Queen Bee crown, NONILLION is the most likely sticking point. Committing it to memory as a fixture of large-number nomenclature ensures it never goes unfound again.
How the Scoring Works
Four-letter words each earn 1 point. Words of five letters or more earn 1 point per letter. A pangram – any word that uses all seven letters at least once – earns a 7-point bonus on top of its letter count. LIFELONG, at 8 letters, therefore earns 8 plus 7, totaling 15 points. Genius rank requires 197 of the available 282 points, which is roughly 70 percent of the maximum. Players who find LIFELONG, NONILLION, and most of the 7-letter -ING words will clear Genius comfortably without needing every four-letter entry.
The puzzle resets each day at 3:00 a.m. Eastern Time. For a deeper look at the game’s rank structure – from Beginner all the way through Amazing, Genius, and the coveted Queen Bee – the Eastern Herald’s complete Spelling Bee guide walks through every tier and the strategies that unlock them fastest.
The Broader NYT Games Ecosystem
The Spelling Bee sits alongside several other daily puzzles in the New York Times Games portfolio. Wordle tests five-letter word deduction across six guesses; Connections groups sixteen words into four thematic categories; and Strands challenges players to uncover hidden theme words within a 6-by-8 letter grid while pursuing the elusive spangram. Each game probes a different axis of linguistic cognition – phonetic probability, associative clustering, and spatial vocabulary recognition, respectively – making the daily quartet one of the most cognitively varied puzzle lineups in digital media.
For players tracking recent Spelling Bee difficulty trends, the BOOKMOBILE puzzle from May 14 offered a useful comparison point: a single complex pangram anchoring a compact grid, in contrast to today’s more expansive and suffix-driven architecture. June’s puzzles have broadly rewarded players who prioritize pattern recognition over dictionary recall, and today’s 65-word grid is the clearest expression of that tendency so far this month.
The NYT Connections puzzle from earlier this week offers a parallel lesson in lateral thinking, and for players who enjoy moving between formats, completing both puzzles on the same morning has become a common ritual among dedicated solvers.
About the NYT Spelling Bee
The New York Times Spelling Bee is a daily word puzzle designed by puzzle editor Sam Ezersky and published as part of the New York Times Games platform. Players are presented with seven letters arranged in a honeycomb pattern, one at the center and six surrounding it. All valid words must include the center letter, must be at least four characters long, must not be proper nouns or hyphenated, and must draw only from the letters provided, with unlimited repetition permitted. The puzzle deliberately excludes the letter S to prevent trivial pluralization from inflating scores. Completion of the full word list earns the unofficial Queen Bee designation – one of the most coveted informal achievements in daily word gaming.
