Today’s NYT Spelling Bee puzzle was a delightful challenge! With L as the center letter and surrounded by K, Y, U, P, I, E, I was eager to explore the possible combinations. I immediately saw the potential for a fun mix of letters, especially with the possibility of forming a few longer words.
My Solving Strategy
I always start by fixing the center letter — in today’s case, L. This gives me a focal point for generating words. From there, I look for common pairings like PI, PUP, LIE, and PILL. Once I had a few easy words, I started experimenting with different endings and prefixes.
After a few moments of exploration, I discovered the pangram — PUPPYLIKE! What a satisfying feeling it is when the letters all come together to form a word that not only fits the puzzle but uses every letter, including the center L.
Today’s Pangram : PUPPYLIKE
Below is the list of all valid words I managed to form today:
4-LETTER WORDS:
- eely
- illy
- keel
- kelp
- kill
- leek
- lieu
- like
- lily
- peel
- pile
- pill
- pule
- pull
- pulp
- yell
- yelp
- yule
5-LETTER WORDS:
6-LETTER WORDS:
- kelpie
- likely
- pileup
- pulley
7+-LETTER WORDS:
- puppylike (pangram)
- ukulele
I managed to find 27 words, including the pangram! While it wasn’t the longest word in the dictionary, PUPPYLIKE is fun and quirky, making it a perfect fit for today’s puzzle.

Reflections on Today’s Puzzle
What made today’s Spelling Bee interesting was how the letter combination K, Y, U, P, I, E worked together. PUPPYLIKE was a pleasant surprise and felt like the perfect word to wrap up the puzzle. It’s not often that I come across a fun, playful word like that.
While it took a bit of thinking outside the box to come up with the longer words, the puzzle wasn’t overly complex. The real challenge was finding words that made sense and used the Y and K together.
Final Thoughts
If you’re still working on the puzzle, remember to try combinations using the center letter L with other vowels like I and E. PUPPYLIKE may have seemed a bit tricky at first, but once I spotted it, everything else fell into place. I hope this blog post helps you with your daily puzzle solving!
If you love solving puzzles and want to improve your spelling skills, check out the Spelling Better app. You can play 1-vs-1 games, solve daily pangrams, and track your progress. It’s a fun, competitive way to enhance your vocabulary and keep your mind sharp.