Glossary of Spelling Bee Terms
Beginner
The starting rank for every player regardless of their skill level and from here, players start guessing to progress further through the ranks.
Good Start
The second lowest place in the ranking’s ladder, Good Start is usually achieved after a player finds between one to three words or around 2% of the words.
Moving Up
The third lowest rank on the ladder, players hit this rank after two to four words but once again, that does depend on the points score per word and the puzzle’s total points.
Good
Level four on the ladder, research has shown that it can be reached after finding three to five words or just under 10% of the word list.
Solid
The fifth level and the last one for non-subscribers, most players should have found five plus words to reach this point.
Nice
The sixth level and where things start becoming even tougher as players normally have discovered around 25% of the word list by this rank.
Great
The most common level for the more experienced players to reach. Players need to find around 40% of the database of the daily puzzle to reach this point.
Amazing
The eighth step on the ranking’s ladder, it’s also one of the toughest hurdles to climb as it requires players to discover at least 50% of the daily puzzle’s word list.
Genius
The highest officially displayed rank and the toughest to hit regularly, players need to find between 70% to 80% of the daily puzzle’s word list to reach here.
Queen Bee
The ultimate but hidden rank in the game, Queen Bee is achieved when players find every single word on the word list.
Beeatrice
The mascot of the Spelling Bee, Beeatrice appears for players when they reach Genius rank wearing a mortarboard, and for those that reach Queen Bee, she’ll wear a crown.
Bingo:
Created by the Hivemind, it’s an achievement when players find words that use all seven letters to start a word at least once.
Center letter:
The letter that appears in the center cell of the daily puzzle’s hive.
Complementary pangrams:
This refers to a set of two, or more, pangrams that have the same seven letters and the set will always appear in the list for the hive.
Compound
A valid word created by linking two or more shorter words together.
Debut
Any word that makes its first-ever appearance in a day’s solution set.
Disallowed
Known words that have been excluded from past solution sets.
Ezersky, Sam
The editor of the daily online Spelling Bee puzzle.
Hive
The list of seven letters that form that particular day’s daily puzzle.
Hivemind
This is the name given to the community of Spelling Bee fans across social media who share hints on a daily basis.
Longo, Frank
The creator and co-editor of the original print version of the Spelling Bee.
Mashing keys
The simple act of hitting a catalog of letter combinations to see if they make up valid words on the list.
Pangram
Used to describe a word that uses all seven letters in the hive at least once and every daily Spelling Bee puzzle will contain at least one pangram.
Perfect pangram
A seven-letter pangram that uses every letter in the hive only once.
Plural
A form of a noun used to indicate a quantity greater than one i.e. teeth for tooth, children for child, and more.
Print version
The original version of the Spelling Bee that appears weekly in The New York Times Magazine with a slight difference in rules, as the minimum word length is five letters long.
Solution set
The complete list of words that can be created using different combinations of letters from the hive.
