Spelling Bee Solver
Enter the seven letters of a Spelling Bee-style hive — the center letter and the six around it — and get every word that fits, with its points, pangrams highlighted, and the total score on offer. Want a nudge rather than the answers? Switch to the hint grid. Runs in your browser. Free, no sign-up.
The letter every word must contain.
In any order. Spaces and commas are ignored.
Enter the center letter and the six outer letters to list every word the hive allows.
Words need four or more letters and the center letter; letters can repeat. Four-letter words score 1 point, longer words one point per letter, and a pangram (all seven letters) earns 7 more.
Words come from ENABLE, a public-domain word-game list. It is not the list the puzzle uses, so you may see words the game rejects and miss some it accepts.
How to Use the Spelling Bee Solver
- Enter the center letter. This is the letter every word must contain.
- Enter the six outer letters. Any order; spaces and commas are ignored. All seven letters must be different.
- Read the words. They appear grouped by length, shortest first, with pangrams listed on their own at the top and marked with a star. The cards show the number of words, the points available, and the number of pangrams.
- Switch to hints if you want to keep playing. The hint grid counts words by first letter and length and lists the two-letter starts, without printing a single word.
The Rules the Solver Applies
- Length. Every word has at least four letters.
- Letters. A word may use only the seven letters of the hive, and may use any of them as many times as it likes — tartar is fine with one T and one R in the hive.
- Center letter. Every word must contain it.
- Pangram. A word that uses all seven letters at least once.
- Points. A four-letter word scores 1 point. A longer word scores one point per letter. A pangram scores its length plus a 7-point bonus.
Behind the scenes each word is reduced to a 26-bit mask recording which letters it contains. A word is valid when the mask has no bit outside the hive and includes the center bit, and it is a pangram when the mask equals the hive exactly. One pass through the list takes a few milliseconds.
A Worked Example
Take the center letter a with the outer letters c, f, t, o, r, y. The solver finds 86 words worth 356 points. There are 33 four-letter words, 26 five-letter words, 12 six-letter words, 9 seven-letter words, 4 eight-letter words, and one each at nine and ten letters. The only pangram is factory, worth 14 points; the longest word is rotorcraft, at ten letters and ten points. The hint grid shows that 13 words start ta and 12 start ca — two prefixes that cover nearly a third of the whole puzzle.
| Word | Letters | Pangram? | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| tart | 4 | No | 1 |
| carrot | 6 | No | 6 |
| factor | 6 | No | 6 |
| factory | 7 | Yes | 14 |
| rotorcraft | 10 | No | 10 |
Playing Without Spoiling the Puzzle
- Use the hint grid first. Knowing there are 12 words that start ca and 7 that start fa is often enough to start a list in your head.
- Hunt the pangram by endings. Try -ing, -ed, -er, -ly, and -y against the letters. Most pangrams are built from a short root plus a suffix.
- Work in families. Once fact is in, look for factor, factory, and cofactor.
- Look at the long words last. Four- and five-letter words are the bulk of the score; long words are worth the most each but are fewer.
About the Word List
The solver uses ENABLE, the public-domain word list that also powers CitationEasy's Anagram Solver and Word Pattern Finder. It is a general word-game list, not the editor-curated list a puzzle publisher uses. That cuts both ways: ENABLE has rare words such as orfray and ratatat that the daily puzzle would not count, and it may lack a few recent words that the puzzle does. Treat the points total as a guide to the puzzle's size, not a promise of the game's own score.
This tool is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any newspaper or publisher of a Spelling Bee puzzle. It does not know any day's puzzle: you enter the letters.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are the rules of Spelling Bee?
- You make words from seven letters. Each word must have at least four letters, include the center letter, and use only letters in the hive — and letters may be repeated. Longer words score more, and a word using all seven letters is a pangram worth a bonus.
- What is a pangram in Spelling Bee?
- A word that uses every one of the seven letters at least once, repeats allowed. The puzzle is built around at least one. The solver lists pangrams separately and marks them with a star; in the example above, factory is the only one.
- How are Spelling Bee points calculated?
- A four-letter word is worth 1 point. A word of five or more letters is worth one point for each letter. A pangram adds a 7-point bonus to its length-based score, so a seven-letter pangram is worth 14.
- Why does the solver show words the game does not accept?
- The solver uses the public-domain ENABLE list, which is larger and less selective than a puzzle editor's list. It includes obscure plurals, verb forms, and technical terms. A word the game rejects is not an error in your letters, just a word outside the game's list.
- How do I find the pangram?
- Look for a root that uses several of the letters, then test common endings: -ing, -ed, -er, -ly, -y. The solver can also show you the pangrams directly. If you want to find it yourself, use the hint grid to see how many long words there are before you decide to look.
- Does this tell me today's answers?
- No. It has no connection to any daily puzzle; it works only from the seven letters you type. That also means it works for archived puzzles, for puzzles in other apps, and for ones you make up.
- What does the hint grid show?
- It counts the words by first letter and by length, and lists how many words begin with each two-letter pair — the same kind of hints many players use to organize a search. No actual words are shown in that view.