Today’s NYT Spelling Bee for July 20, 2026, uses the center letter M with outer letters I, L, O, N, T, H. There are approximately 40 valid words in today’s puzzle. The two pangrams are MILLIONTH and MONOLITH.
All valid words must be at least four letters long, include the center letter M, and use only the seven letters in today’s hive. Letters can be repeated.
Today’s pangrams:
MILLIONTH (9 letters, 16 points) – the ordinal form of one million. Appearing once in every ten million lottery tickets, or in the kind of record-breaking milestone press release that announces someone’s “millionth customer.”
MONOLITH (8 letters, 15 points) – a large single upright block of stone, or by extension any large, uniform, and imposing structure or organisation. Both Stanley Kubrick and Stonehenge made this word famous in different ways.
Hints before the word list:
Today’s puzzle rewards players who think in the M-first direction. Start with short M words: a low-value coin (MILL), a small personal robot from science fiction (MINI), a cooling herb (MINT), a summer month abbreviation reversed, and the past tense of the verb “to omit” (OMIT). For longer words, consider the formal word for a type of repetitive pattern (MINIM) and the somewhat archaic verb meaning to draw or delineate (LIMN).
Selected valid words for July 20, 2026:
MILL, MINI, MINT, MITT, MOIL, OMIT, LIMO, LIMN, MINIM, MILLION, MINION, MOTION, MOONLIT, TOMTIT, LIMIT, MONOLITH, MILLIONTH.
The full word list also includes shorter and less common terms built from the letter set. Queen Bee status – finding every word – requires around 40 correct entries today.
Yesterday’s Spelling Bee (July 19, 2026) featured the center letter G with outer letters A, L, I, V, N, T, and three pangrams: GALLIVANTING, GALLIVANT, and VIGILANT.
For the rest of today’s puzzle coverage, the Wordle #1857 answer for July 20 is live, along with NYT Connections #1135.
