The NYT Spelling Bee for Sunday, August 9, 2026 has H as the center letter. The outer letters are A, C, E, L, O, and T. Today’s puzzle features two pangrams: CHOCOLATE and ECHOLOCATE. There are 77 valid answers in total, ranging from four to ten letters. The full word list is below, with three hints first for players who want to keep solving.
NYT Spelling Bee Hints – August 9, 2026
Three hints before the answers: the puzzle leans heavily on -ACH and -EACH patterns, so words in those families are worth hunting first. The harder pangram, ECHOLOCATE, is the verb for what bats and dolphins do to navigate by sound. And the ten-letter bonus word, TELEHEALTH, describes medical care delivered remotely over digital platforms.
Today’s center letter H is unusually productive: 77 answers is a high word count for a Sunday puzzle. The letters A, C, E, L, O, T pair with H across a wide range of word families, from simple four-letter combinations like HEEL and HOLE to the rarer COCHLEAE (plural of COCHLEA, the inner-ear spiral). Players who find ECHO early should push toward ECHOLOCATE before running out of steam on shorter words.
NYT Spelling Bee Answers – August 9, 2026
Complete word list for August 9, 2026, organized by length:
4 letters (27): ache, chat, coho, each, echo, etch, hale, hall, halo, halt, hate, hath, heal, heat, heel, hell, hole, holt, hoot, lath, lech, loch, oath, tach, tech, that, thee
5 letters (24): achoo, aloha, cache, catch, cheat, cloth, coach, halal, hatch, hatha, heath, hello, hooch, hotel, latch, lathe, leach, leech, loach, loath, teach, teeth, theta, tooth
6 letters (10): attach, cachet, chalet, cloche, clothe, health, lethal, loathe, teethe, thatch
7 letters (9): alcohol, athlete, attache, challah, chattel, cheetah, cochlea, hatchet, hellcat
8 letters (3): catchall, cochleae, hellhole
9 letters (2): chocolate, toothache
10 letters (2): echolocate, telehealth
Today’s Standout Answers
ECHOLOCATE is the trickiest word in today’s grid. The verb entered common English in the 1950s alongside formal research into animal sonar: bats emit high-frequency pulses and interpret the returning echoes to build a spatial map of their surroundings; dolphins use the same mechanism underwater. CHOCOLATE, the other pangram, is often spotted late because players assume it needs a letter outside the set.
TELEHEALTH at ten letters is the session’s longest non-pangram word, defined as healthcare delivered via remote digital platforms. HELLHOLE and CATCHALL are the eight-letter words most likely to be missed; COCHLEAE, the plural of the inner-ear spiral, is the word that stumps solvers who know COCHLEA but forget the Latin plural ending. TOOTHACHE sits at nine letters and tends to be found late, usually after TOOTH and TOOTHACHE’s shorter relatives are already on the board.
For the previous puzzle, see the NYT Spelling Bee answers for August 7, 2026, which featured the nine-letter pangram EXPENDING.
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