Why are some words rejected in the NYT Spelling Bee?
While Wordle’s daily hidden word comes from a pre-picked list, the New York Times’ Spelling Bee follows a completely different format when picking their word list. The game's editor, Sam Ezersky, has specific rules and regulations to create the word list for the daily puzzle, to balance engagement, challenge, and accessibility for solvers. But at the same time, Ezersky and co have also disallowed or banned a few words to keep the game working in tip-top shape.
Thus, as a result, the word list doesn’t have words that are offensive, obscure, hyphenated, or proper nouns and they’re not the only ones. Technical jargon, archaic terms, and even some abbreviations aren’t allowed to ensure the game is as challenging and engaging as it can be. Even then, the final decision on the daily word list can seem arbitrary but in the end, it’s Ezersky’s job to maintain a balance between difficulty and fairness which is why words are often rejected.
That also includes a few common words, especially if they’re deemed to be either too simple for solvers or don’t fit the puzzle’s intended theme or difficulty level.
List of Disallowed Words
You can discover some of the most commonly disallowed words in the NYT Spelling Bee through posts shared by users on the NYTSpellingBee subreddit. Here are a few examples:
A
- Abattoir: Slaughterhouse.
- Affine: In geometry, a linear mapping function that preserves points, straight lines, and planes, but not necessarily distance or angles.
- Amine: Chemical.
B
- Bailable: Eligible for bail.
- Bluing: Blue powder used to preserve the whiteness of laundry; a grayish-blue finish on metal produced by heating.
C
- Capacitive: The property of being able to collect and hold a charge of electricity.
- Cavitate: To form cavities or bubbles.
- Chiral: Being different from its mirror image. Basic high school chemistry.
- Colloidal: Of the nature relating to or characterized by a COLLOID.
- Conman: A man who cheats or tricks someone by gaining their trust and persuading them to believe something that is not true.
- Cyclonic: like or relating to a cyclone.
D
- Detune, Detuned: To cause (or to have caused) a musical instrument to go out of tune.
- Dicot: One of the two groups into which all the flowering plants used to be divided (still see it in nature identification apps).
E
- Emboli: Blood clots (plural of embolus).
- Exigence: Alternate term for exigency: an issue, situation or problem that causes someone to act or speak.
- Eyehole: A hole to look through.
F
- Fillable: Able to be filled.
G
- Gaily: With merriment; merrily; joyfully; cheerfully.
I
- Incel: A person, usually male, frustrated by their lack of sexual experiences. (As defined in many dictionaries.)
- Inline: Arranged in a line, or included in the main text.
- Innkeeper: Master of the house, doling out the charm. Ready with a handshake and an open palm.
- Ionization: The process by which an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive charge by gaining or losing electrons.
L
- Liana: Long-stemmed, woody vine.
- Lido: A public, open-air swimming pool or beach.
M
- Maltitol: A sugar alcohol (a polyol) used as a sugar substitute.
- Mica: Name of a group of minerals
- Midline: A median line, especially in medicine wrt. the body.
- Minimart: S small supermarket.
- Mitotic: Of, relating to, involving, or occurring by cellular mitosis. mitotic cell division. mitotic recombination.
N
- Naphtha: Naphtha is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture.
- Naphthalene: The simplest polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon.
- Noncanonical: Not part of the canon.
- Nonionic: Not ionic.
O
- Odorant: A substance giving off a smell, especially one used to give a particular scent or odor to a product.
P
- Phage: A common type of virus that infects and replicates within its host, and is sometimes used medicinally to kill bacteria.
- Phthalate: One of a group of chemicals used to make plastics more durable.
- Pineal: An endocrine organ in the cerebrum that produces the hormone melatonin. Full names include pineal gland, pineal body, pineal organ. The term is also used for the pineal eye, a photoreceptive parietal eye for some vertebrates.
- Plenum: Assembly of all members of a group; a filled space, or a space for collecting some material.
- Placeable: Identifiable; recognizable.
R
- Ronin: A samurai who no longer serves a daimyo, or feudal lord.
T
- Tartaric: Type of acid. CITRIC is accepted.
- Tinning: Thinly coating sheets of iron or steel with tin to form tinplate; coating metal with solder before soldering.
- Topograph: A monument erected in a high place, such as a hilltop, indicating the direction and distance of notable landscape features which can be seen with the naked eye from that point.
U
- Undaunted: Not intimidated or discouraged by difficulty, danger, or disappointment.
- Unindicted: Not charged with a crime.
- Untended: Not cared for or looked after.
V
- Veining: A pattern of streaks and lines.
