How does the NYT Spelling Bee grid work?
The NYT Spelling Bee Grid is a two-dimensional grid that shows the number of words that can be built from a particular starting letter and of a particular length. This grid is accessible from the "Hints" link above the game. It might be tricky to understand at first, but it's actually quite simple and useful once you get the hang of it.
For example, in the screenshot above, you can see that there is an "8" on the row labelled "A" and column labelled "5". This means that there are 8 words that can be built from the the first letter "A" that are 5 letters long. In this particular example, which is from June 25, 2023, the 8 words were:
- ALIEN
- ALIVE
- ALLAY
- ALLEY
- ANNAL
- ANVIL
- AVAIL
- AVIAN
The right-most and bottom-most columns have the sum (the greek letter sigma (∑) is used) of the numbers in the row or column. For example, in the screenshot above, you the right most column on the row "A" has a 13, which means that there are 13 words that can be built from the first letter "A". Similarly, there is a "19" at the bottom of the column labelled "4", which means that there are 19 words that are 4 letters long.
Tip: Our hints page extends this concept and allows you to break down the words by the first 1, 2, or 3 starting letters.
Below this grid, there is a count of words grouped by the first two letters. In the screenshot above, you can see "AL-6", which means that there are 6 words that start with "AL". These words were:
- ALLY
- ALIEN
- ALIVE
- ALLAY
- ALLEY
- ALLELE
Tip: Our hints page extends this concept and allows see the first three letters for any combination of first two letters.