NYT Spelling Bee answers today, Thursday, August 20, 2026: the centre letter is T, the outer letters are G, I, N, O, Q and U, and the pangram is QUOTING.
There are 47 accepted words on this board, worth 262 points in total, which puts Genius at 183. The hints come first and the full list follows.
NYT Spelling Bee Hints Today, August 20, 2026
- There is one pangram, and it is seven letters long.
- The pangram is one of only four words on the whole board that use the rarest letter in the hive.
- Twenty-five of the 47 answers end in the same three letters.
- The longest word is ten letters and means to be outmatched in firepower.
- Two answers are ballet and music terms that repeat the same syllable.
What Is Today’s Spelling Bee Pangram?
The pangram for August 20, 2026 is QUOTING, which uses all seven letters once each.
NYT Spelling Bee Answers Today: The Full Word List
Four letters: GOUT, INTO, ONTO, QUIT, TINT, TONG, TOON, TOOT, TOUT, TUTU, UNIT, UNTO
Five letters: INGOT, OUTGO, QUINT, TUTTI
Six letters: INTUIT, NOTING, NOTION, OUTGUN, OUTING, TONING, TOTING, TUNING
Seven letters: GUTTING, QUOTING, TINGING, TINNING, TINTING, TOGGING, TONGING, TOOTING, TOUTING, TUGGING, TUITION, TUTTING, UNITING
Eight letters: IGNITING, IGNITION, INTONING, OUTGOING, QUITTING, TONGUING, UNTUNING
Nine letters: INTUITING, INTUITION
Ten letters: OUTGUNNING
Why the Q Makes This Board Unusual
Spelling Bee almost never puts a Q in the hive, for the obvious reason that English gives it almost nowhere to go. It works today only because U is sitting beside it, and every one of the four Q words uses the pair: QUIT, QUINT, QUITTING and QUOTING.
That last one is the pangram, which is the part worth noticing. The seven-letter word that unlocks the bonus is gated behind the one letter most solvers will glance at and mentally set aside. Anyone hunting the pangram through the friendly letters will not find it, because it is not there.
The rest of the board leans hard the other way. There is no S, as there never is, so plurals are off the table and the hive compensates with verbs: 25 of the 47 answers end in ING. Once TOOTING, TOTING, TONING and TUNING have gone in, the pattern does most of the remaining work, and OUTGUNNING at ten letters is simply that habit taken to its conclusion.
TUTTI and TUTU are the two that tend to stall people, both borrowed, both doubling a syllable, and neither one a word most solvers would produce unprompted. TOGGING and TUTTING are the other likely gaps, being real but uncommon.
More NYT Puzzle Answers Today
Also solving? Today’s Wordle answer is MURKY, and our NYT Mini Crossword answers are published every morning alongside this one.
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