The NYT Spelling Bee for Sunday, August 2, 2026 has N as the center letter. The outer letters are A, C, D, E, H, L. Every answer must contain N, and all letters come from this seven-letter set.
There are two pangrams today: CHANNELED and DANCEHALL. Both use all seven letters, and both sit at nine letters, making today’s set one of the more generous pangram days in recent weeks. CHANNELED is the more accessible of the two; DANCEHALL, a compound of two common words, is the satisfying find.
NYT Spelling Bee Answers – August 2, 2026
9 letters (4): CANCELLED, CHANNELED, DANCEHALL, DECADENCE
8 letters (7): ANNEALED, CANCELED, CLENCHED, DEADENED, ENHANCED, HANDHELD, HEADLAND
7 letters (14): ADDENDA, CADENCE, CANDELA, CHANCED, CHANCEL, CHANNEL, CLEANED, DANDLED, ENHANCE, ENLACED, HANDLED, HENNAED, NACELLE, NEEDLED
6 letters (20): ADDEND, ANNEAL, CANCAN, CANCEL, CANDLE, CANNED, CHANCE, CLENCH, DANCED, DANDLE, DEADEN, ENLACE, ENNEAD, HANDED, HANDLE, LANCED, LANDED, LEADEN, LEANED, NEEDLE
5 letters (12): ANNAL, CANAL, CANED, CANNA, CLEAN, DANCE, ELAND, ENDED, HENCE, HENNA, LADEN, LANCE
4 letters (15): ACNE, CANE, CLAN, DEAN, ELAN, HAND, LAND, LANE, LEAN, LEND, NAAN, NADA, NANA, NEED, NENE
Notes on Today’s Puzzle
DANCEHALL is today’s standout find. A single compound word – dance and hall joined – it refers to the large room where dances are held, but also to the Jamaican music genre that developed from reggae in the late 1970s and remains one of the most influential popular music forms of the past five decades. The dancehall genre’s synthesis of digital riddims, deejay toasting, and soundsystem culture spread internationally through the 1980s and 1990s, reaching mainstream audiences through artists including Shabba Ranks, Buju Banton, Sean Paul, and Vybz Kartel. The word’s two-part structure is what makes it a trap: DANCE and HALL are both solved quickly in other contexts, but their compound only surfaces when solvers specifically scan for nine-letter words.
CHANNELED is the other pangram and the easier of the two to confirm. A channel is both a waterway and the act of directing something through a route; channeled is its past tense. American English uses the single-L spelling (CHANNELED); British English doubles it (CHANNELLED). CANCELLED at nine letters follows the same British/American split – the British double-L form – and both spellings appear in today’s grid alongside the American single-L CANCELED at eight letters.
Several shorter finds reward careful scanning. CANDELA (7 letters) is the SI base unit of luminous intensity, named after the Latin for candle. NACELLE (7 letters) is the streamlined housing that encloses an aircraft engine on a wing or the gondola beneath an airship. ENNEAD (6 letters) names a group or set of nine, from the Greek ennea; the word appears most often in discussions of the philosopher Plotinus, whose collected works are known as the Enneads. NENE (4 letters) is the Hawaiian goose, the official state bird of Hawaii and a regular in Spelling Bee grids thanks to its short, repeated-letter structure.
CANNA (5 letters) refers to a genus of tropical flowering plants with large paddle-shaped leaves, common in garden borders. DANDLE (6 letters) – to hold a young child on one’s knee and bounce them gently – is one of the puzzle’s less-seen words and may take a second pass to locate. HENNAED (7 letters) is the past tense of the verb to henna, meaning to dye or decorate with the reddish-brown pigment made from the Lawsonia plant.
For previous Spelling Bee answers, see NYT Spelling Bee for August 1, 2026 (center R, pangram BRICKBAT) and NYT Spelling Bee for July 31, 2026 (center M, pangram OPTIMAL).
