Your Spelling Bee Companion for Thursday, May 21, 2026
A field guide for the G A C D E H N hive: how many words you need, strategies for finding them, and (if you turn hint mode off) the full word lists you need to reach Genius and Queen Bee today.
Today's Board
Verified Answers
35
Disputed Words
11
Pangrams
1
Score for Queen Bee
163
Genius estimate: 114 points
Verified Answers
35
Find every accepted word in today's source list
Pangrams
1
Use all seven letters
Disputed Words
11
In our dictionary but not the Spelling Bee list
Puzzle Snapshot
Solve The Hive Before The Spoilers
This page is currently in hint mode: you get the board, counts, estimated score targets, and strategy prompts without answer words. Reveal specific words only when you are ready to check your solve.
Today's Read
Tight board with one pangram and a heavy -GED family
Today's G-centered hive is tighter than the last couple of boards: only 35 verified answers, one pangram, and a lot of value packed into repeated-letter families instead of broad letter variety. Start by testing CH-, EN-, and EGG- shapes before you clean up the 11 four-letter words. If a stem can plausibly take a -GED ending, check that first because this puzzle rewards that pattern over random scanning.
Verified answers
35
Max score
163
Genius
114
1 pangram
Pangram Hunt
Start by forcing every letter into longer shapes before clearing short entries. Pangrams are the fastest way to move the score.
163 possible points
Point Density
The current candidate pool estimates a Genius target around 114 points. Longer words matter more than raw word count.
35 verified answers
Queen Bee Path
Use the word lists below to scoop up every point you need to reach Queen Bee.
Study mode
Definition Pass
Click unfamiliar words to reveal their definitions and cement them in your memory for next time.
Pattern Prompts
Work The Board Without Reveals
- -GED finishers: The board keeps paying out when you extend short bases into past-tense forms, so test every credible stem for a -GED landing before hunting one-point words. Examples: cadged, edged, gagged, hedged, nagged.
- Double-letter pressure: Repeated G and repeated E are not edge cases here; they are how the biggest scores appear, especially in the EGG- and GAG- branches. Examples: egged, egghead, eggheaded, gagged, gadded.
- EN- upgrade chain: The EN- family gives you reliable mid-length scoring because one base often extends cleanly into a longer verified form. Examples: encage, encaged, engage, engaged.
- Save four-letter cleanup for last: There are 11 verified four-letter answers, but this hive is much easier if you first bank the seven- to nine-letter forms and then sweep the cheap endings. Examples: aged, cage, edge, gang, hang.
- CH- is the pangram lane: Once you see that the only pangram sits in the CH- family, it gives you the board's central structure instead of a random reveal. Examples: change, changed.
Common Prefixes
CA
CA opens multiple verified branches, including both straightforward cage forms and the trickier cadge family.
Examples: cadge, cadged, cage, caged
EN
EN is the cleanest way to reach longer verified answers on this board.
Examples: encage, encaged, engage, engaged
EG
EG starts several repeated-letter words and leads into the highest-value family.
Examples: egad, egged, egghead, eggheaded
HA
HA gives you a compact branch with a reliable length upgrade.
Examples: hang, hanged
Common Suffixes
ged
This is the dominant ending in the verified list, so it should be one of the first suffixes you test against viable stems.
Examples: cadged, edged, gagged, hedged, nagged
age
The AGE ending repeats across both simple and extended answers, and it also points toward longer cage and engage branches.
Examples: adage, cage, engage
nge
The NGE cluster is productive and helps narrow the likely long-word shapes quickly.
Examples: change, engage, henge
head
HEAD only appears in one branch, but it is the branch that leads straight to the board's best score.
Examples: egghead, eggheaded
Progressive Help
Pangram Hints
Start with the only all-letter lane
The pangram is a seven-letter verb built from a very common everyday action, and it begins with CH-.
Narrow the ending
If you already have CHANGE, push that branch one step further into a past-tense finish.
Full reveal
The pangram is the past-tense form of the common CH- base word.
Reveal words: changed
Spoiler Control
Notable Words
- changedPangram
- eggheaded9 pts
- egghead7 pts
- ganache7 pts
- engaged7 pts
- encaged7 pts
- cadged6 pts
- agenda6 pts
- change6 pts
- encage6 pts
Why these matter
- changed
CHANGED is the board's perfect pangram, so finding it early unlocks the seven-letter bonus and confirms how the C-H-A-N-G-E-D skeleton fits together.
- eggheaded
EGGHEADED is the top-value haul on this board at nine letters, and it pays off only once you recognize that the puzzle strongly rewards doubled G and doubled E builds.
- egghead
EGGHEAD is a shorter doorway into the long-scoring EGGHEADED branch, so it is worth chasing before you sweep stray four-letter cleanup.
- ganache
GANACHE is easy to miss because the ending feels more culinary than puzzle-obvious, but it is a clean seven-letter score jump with no spoiler-heavy reveal path needed.
- engaged
ENGAGED matters because the ENGAGE base turns into a productive past-tense upgrade, which is one of the board's main scoring patterns.
- encaged
ENCAGED shows the same upgrade logic on a different stem, helping solvers test EN- plus cage-family branches instead of searching randomly.
- cadged
CADGED is strategically useful because it confirms the CADGE family and reinforces how often this hive cashes in on -GED endings.
Hard Finds
Tricky Accepted Words
- cadge
CADGE is easy to skip if you expect only the more common cage branch, but it unlocks one of the board's useful -GED upgrades.
- egad
EGAD is short, old-fashioned, and exactly the kind of four-letter cleanup word that disappears if you only scan modern vocabulary.
- ghee
GHEE demands repeated vowels and a culinary register, so it is a classic late-find even when the letters are sitting in plain view.
- henge
HENGE looks almost too clean to be right, which makes it one of the better spot-check words for the H- branch.
- ganache
GANACHE is strategically important because it is a seven-letter score jump hiding behind a less obvious food word.
- eggheaded
EGGHEADED is the board's biggest score and depends on embracing repeated letters instead of avoiding them.
Disputed Candidates
Plausible Rejections
- agee
AGEE looks plausible because the hive supports short AGE forms, but today's verified list stops at AGED and ADAGE instead.
- agha
AGHA fits the letters, but the source list does not validate this title for today's puzzle.
- chang
CHANG is tempting once you spot CHANGE and CHANGED, but the verified branch does not accept the shorter noun form here.
- danged
DANGED feels like a natural upgrade from DANG, yet it is not in the verified answer set for May 21.
- gean
GEAN matches the letters, but it is not confirmed on today's source-backed list.
- geed
GEED resembles the board's many -ED forms, but it is not one of the verified endings today.
- gena
GENA looks like it should sit near GENE, but the source answers do not include it.
- genned
GENNED follows the repeated-letter pattern, but the verified list does not extend GENE that way today.
- haggadah
HAGGADAH is letter-legal and long, but it is not in the accepted source answers for this date.
- naga
NAGA fits the hive, but it is not part of the verified answer set.
- nagana
NAGANA looks like a valid long branch off NAG-, but the source list only confirms NAGGED.
Answer Vault
All The Words You Need And A Few You Don't.
Trusted words are those you'll need to solve the puzzle. Disputed words are the ones we found in our dictionary that don't appear in the Spelling Bee's curated list. But we thought you might like to see them anyway.