Yesterday's puzzle put V in the centre and handed us barely twenty words. Today does the opposite.
The grid for 29 August 2026 sits T at the centre, ringed by H, O, A, I, N, D. That's a generous letter set — three vowels, four of the most common consonants in English, and a pangram ten letters long. The danger today isn't being stuck. It's stopping too early.
Step oneReading the grid
- Three vowels changes everything.A, I and O together mean you can build words in almost any direction. Compare that to the two-vowel grids we've had this week, where every answer came out sounding clipped and hard. Today the words flow.
- T and H sitting together is a signal.The moment I saw both in the same grid I started sweeping the TH- words: THAN, THAT, THIN, and then the -TH endings, OATH, TOOTH, NINTH. That one letter pair accounted for six answers before I'd properly started.
- Doubled O is on the table.With repeats allowed, OO appears in HOOT, TOOTH, and — as it turned out — the pangram itself. If you're not testing doubled vowels on a grid this open, you're leaving points behind.
Step twoFinding the pangram
The pangram needs all seven: N, A, T, I, O, H, D.
I had NATION on my list within the first minute. Six letters, five of the seven required. What was missing were H and D — and that pairing is a hint in itself, because H and D bookend one of the most reliable noun suffixes in English.
- NATION five of the seven letters
- H + D missing read the gap, not the grid
- -HOOD childhood · likelihood · neighbourhood
- NATIONHOOD ten letters · pangram
This is the third time this week a suffix has delivered the pangram rather than raw searching.
- Tuesday-INGBUTTONING
- Yesterday-ITYVALIDITY
- Today-HOODNATIONHOOD
There's a pattern worth internalising there, and I'll come back to it at the end.
The full word list
Grouped by length. Tap any word to mark it found — it counts towards your score above.
Answers hidden — no accidental spoilers
The ones worth knowing
- INTONATIONTen letters and not the pangram, which makes it today's cruellest near-miss. Two I's, two T's, three N's. Almost nobody tries it.
- IOTAThe smallest possible amount. A Bee regular that repays memorising.
- DINTAs in "by dint of hard work." Four letters, entirely forgotten by most solvers.
- TAHINISesame seed paste. Six letters hiding behind an unusual vowel run.
- TITIANA reddish-brown colour, named after the painter but valid in lowercase.
The takeaway
Here's the habit that's carried four puzzles in a row: stop hunting for the pangram, and start looking for what your existing answers are missing.
I didn't find NATIONHOOD by staring at seven letters. I found NATION early, noticed that only H and D were unaccounted for, and asked which suffix uses exactly those two. There is essentially one answer to that question.
Do the easy words first. Then read the gap. The pangram is usually a word you already have, wearing an ending you haven't tried yet.
Good luck with tomorrow's grid.