Spelling Bee · Friday

Spelling Bee Answers for January 3, 2020

The complete word list, every pangram, and the seven letters of the hive for today's NYT Spelling Bee. Hand-checked at release.

Words25
Pangrams1
Points possible102
Center letterN
Maya Chen
Senior Puzzle Editor·Published January 3, 2020·3 min read

Hand-checked every word in this list against the live Spelling Bee on the morning of release. Spotted an error?

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Today's seven letters

The center letter is yellow and must appear in every valid word. The six surrounding letters are optional. Every word in the puzzle is at least four letters long.

UG
RNO
DH

Stats & rank thresholds

The Spelling Bee scoring tops out at Queen Bee — the rank you earn for finding every word, including all pangrams. Here are today's point thresholds:

Beginner
0 pts
Moving Up
9 pts
Good
16 pts
Solid
26 pts
Nice
41 pts
Great
51 pts
Amazing
72 pts
Genius
87 pts
Queen Bee
102 pts
Total words
25
Pangrams
1
Possible points
102

Pangrams

A pangram uses all seven letters from today's hive at least once. Each pangram is worth its letter count + a 7-point bonus.

Today's 1 pangram
groundhog +16 pts

The full word list

All 25 valid Spelling Bee solutions for January 3, 2020, grouped by length. Pangrams are highlighted with a star.

Tap to reveal the full word list
4 letters11 words
dongdunggonggoonhornhungnoonnounrungudonundo
5 letters6 words
donordunnohonorhoundrondoround
6 letters5 words
dugonggorgongroundunhoodunhung
7 letters1 word
nunhood
8 letters1 word
unground
9 letters1 word
groundhog

Top-scoring words today

The five words worth the most points in today's puzzle — mostly pangrams and long compound words. These alone can push you over the Genius threshold.

groundhog +16unground +8nunhood +7dugong +6gorgon +6

About this Spelling Bee puzzle

The New York Times Spelling Bee for January 3, 2020 has 25 valid words for a total of 102 possible points. Hitting Queen Bee means finding every single one. The Genius threshold is roughly 85 percent of the total, so today that's about 87 pts.

Stuck on a clue? Jump back to the Spelling Bee hub for strategy tips, the rank-by-rank breakdown, the full archive, and an explainer on how the NYT picks each day's seven letters.

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Recent Spelling Bee puzzles

Catch up on the last week of Spelling Bees. Each link goes straight to that day's full word list.