• Amal Augustine
• June 12, 2025

Today’s NYT Spelling Bee Pangram and Word List – June 11, 2025

If you found yourself staring at today’s Spelling Bee wondering if the letters could unlock your Genius badge, you weren’t alone. I spent a good chunk of the morning circling the hive, trying to make sense of the mix of letters: O (center letter), with K, U, A, L, C, N around it. The moment everything clicked? When I stumbled across the pangram — UNLOCK — and suddenly, the puzzle made so much more sense.

Let me walk you through how I solved it and the words I found along the way.

Starting With the Obvious Words

I always begin Spelling Bee puzzles by identifying short, obvious words that include the center letter. Since O was mandatory, I quickly came up with:

• LOOK

• COOL

• COOK

• LOCK

• LOCO

• LOON

These got me off the ground. Short words help build momentum and boost early points. But they’re only the beginning.

Building Towards Longer Words

Then I started hunting for 5+ letter words. The key is finding a couple of roots and testing variations. I noticed that many words could be built around “LOC” or “COO” and started testing combinations:

• COLON

• LOCO

• COCOA

• COOLAN (wasn’t accepted — lesson learned: always test, but don’t assume!)

I also began experimenting with different prefixes: UN-, CO-, LO-, and started trying potential verbs and nouns. That’s when I tried UNLOCK — and boom! The satisfying pangram sparkle confirmed I was on the right track.

Today’s Pangram: UNLOCK

This 6-letter word uses all the required letters and feels poetic given the challenge — it literally unlocks your Genius potential for the day. It’s always satisfying when the pangram is both thematic and useful.

Complete Word List I Found

Below is a list of words (4 letters or more) that I was able to find and were accepted in today’s puzzle:

• ALCO

• COAL

• COCK

• COCO

• COCOA

• COOK

• COOL

• LOON

• LOOK

• LOCK

• LOCO

• LOON

• NOOK

• NOOK

• KNOLL

• LOCAL

• COLON

• CLOAK

• COOKALOO (nope – tried it out of curiosity!)

• LACK

• CLONK

• UNLOCK ✅ (pangram)

• NOOK

• COON

Of course, your list might be a little different depending on your strategy or missed words, but this set helped push me up to the Genius level comfortably.

Strategy Tip: Watch for Letter Pairings

One trick that helped today was focusing on recurring letter pairs like LO, CO, and CK. This puzzle had several valid CK-ending words (LOCK, COOK, etc.), and spotting those early gave me a base to work from.

I also recommend experimenting with different suffixes like -ON, -AL, -K, and -CO. Even when you don’t land a valid word, it gets your brain warmed up and helps discover potential patterns.

Final Thoughts

Today’s Spelling Bee was one of those puzzles that seems deceptively limited at first glance. The letters felt a bit constrained — no S, no E, no R — but once I found the pangram, it opened everything up.

It’s always rewarding to see how many meaningful words can emerge from such a small set of letters. If you didn’t make it to Genius today, don’t worry — every puzzle is a fresh chance. But if you did get the pangram, especially early on, you know that sweet thrill of the buzz!

Pangram of the Day: UNLOCK

✔️ Required center letter: O
✔️ Letters used: O, K, U, A, L, C, N

Did you find a word I didn’t? Let me know in the comments — I’m always looking to improve my word-finding radar. And don’t forget to check back tomorrow for the next round of buzzing brilliance!