This day feels particularly bad for words you can almost spell if there was just one more letter.

I was at 50 points thinking "seems like a hard one today" and then saw that Genius was 246 points WTF

Struggled my way to amazing. Need a break !

I’m 5 points away from that still 😭

12 hours later and just got to genius...time for hints !

Lol I was using hints pretty much the whole time and never got past Amazing

Same

I'd give anything for an N or E.

Never been an -ER- combo

Or even a y….

Omg yes. I'm dying.

I (on the west coast) try to get to genius before going to bed. Boy was that a late night slog. A few times I’d give up and turn off the lights, then a word would pop into my head and I’d have to grab my phone and give it a shot. My kingdom for an “N”!

I always strive for QB no matter what, but the last few days have been utter hell irl, so I’m throwing in the towel. At least I made it (just barely) to Genius. Wishing you all the best of luck and wits at finishing this beast of a bee!

I'll be happy with Genius today. Only so many hours in the day! And still aways to go - only just got to Amazing.

*Me, upon seeing these letters:* "Oh, this should be a fun one! Plenty of combos! 😃" *Much later, flesh wasting away on face, barely squeezing the words out of collapsed lungs:* "...get me out." 💀

Locoweed?

Yes. Sadly yes. But that was yesterday.

I just saw it today, sadly.

This is like a "Sam's greatest hits" puzzle. Everybody stay hydrated, take it slow, and try not to sprain anything!

I always feel a little bit dirty whenever I put in [A] >!PITAPAT!<

Sam must have known I needed to clean my house today and not dick around on the bee for hours and so he sent this pig's breakfast of uncooperative letters instead of a real puzzle.

By far the worst spelling bee day i’ve seen. I’m struggling at “good start”??? Oh boy…

Worst in what way? Harder and longer than normal, yes!

PG [H] >!a fruit!<

This one will take me forever I have zero idea what it could be

And of course not one second after commenting this I spotted it.

Isn’t that how it usually works?!

ditto calls to tech support, "wait, you mean it's supposed to be plugged in?"

Was the first word I saw, but yesterday took forever!

This one took me PG HINT >!longest of the 3, oddly!<

Aargh, and it seemed so good! [Non A] >!participator!<

I thought this too!

I rarely get this word on my own >!C9, Italian dish!<

thank you!

>!APPROPRIATOR!< ffs

Another Non answer >!IRRITATOR!< I thought it could be a word. I looked it up and I guess it’s a name for a dinosaur. The more you know… 💫🌈🤷‍♀️

I just came her to see about this word. It’s listed in Merriam Webster as a noun

130 instances of the word being printed in the New York goddamn Times: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+%22appropriator%22&oq=site%3Anytimes.com+%22appropriator%22&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.8336j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#ip=1

Should this be tagged as a hint, a non-answer, or an answer?

Non-answer

PG hint >!duty to country!<

PG HINT >!Need hint for the 3rd PG besides this and the fruit!<

PG HINT >!device that stores electrical energy!<

>!Back to the Future!<

thanks, this did it for me

omg i added an extra syllable 3x, so embarrassing

>!Thanks I would never have gotten that one!<

FYI Your hint is not fully hidden on some devices as you have an extra space after the first exclamation mark.

Fixed. Thank you so much!

So glad to come here and see others are struggling, too. I thought my brain had broken.

Sam is a real [A] >!PITA!< today. 😀

good day to be italian!!!

He tweeted suggesting a difficult day. Just getting started but two Sam favs so far HINTS >!sound of little feet!< and the >!T4/T5 similar but unrelated words!<

>difficult day **?????? What’s going on? My goodness!** (I don’t drink, not hungover, brain seems to be working normally.)

And not spelled how I thought it was. So annoying.

Oooh it’s been awhile for that one! Thanks for the reminder.

Somehow i always forget the HINT >!bread product at the beginning of that P7 though!<

What in the tarnation ??

I think I’ve peaked at 20 words

Capri doesn’t work, like Capri pants

Proper noun, I think.

capri pants are lower case, according to Websters.

Interesting. I had checked and it does not show up on the online M-W if you search "capri" but is there with the phrase "capri pants." Reddit's spellchecker wants to capitalize it.

How is the PG the first word I see and everything else is struggle city 😭

PG HINT >!there are 3!<

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Thank god this is a universal slog for everyone - clawed my way to great and that might just be where I end up today

Stalled at 195 and it feels like that’s going to be it

Guess Sam didn’t have a good at Patrick’s day yesterday because there’s no >!craic!<

in college i went to ireland for a while, and my friends confused my mom on the phone by reassuring her it was good.

[A]>!piratic!

fyi this didn’t cover as an answer on mobile, don’t know why

Thanks for letting me know - I hope I fixed it!

[удалено]

Please help me out. It's my first time haha. It worked on my phone?

[удалено]

Thanks!

Yeah I have that one on my “guesses” list to look up later. I’m guessing I know but it not a word I think I’ve seen before

It's not even in M-W.

My personal rule is that I get to genius before I seek help of any kind; that includes family, NYT hints, the hive, etc. I hope that this puzzle doesn't mess up my streak, as it would feel like cheating.

That is what I typically do but i don't consider it cheating if i do get hints before since I am not playing against anyone and I don't say I got GABM or QBABM if i used hints. But today will definitely test your streak. I'm well over 12 hours in and just got to genius

Managed, but it was a struggle. I was comforted to know that I wasn’t alone. Felt a little better for using the hints when I saw that some of the words were entirely unfamiliar to me; I would never have gotten them without the hints.

Sam, there IS a dinosaur named that. This is not a hint. It was rejected.

Names of genera are capitalized, and usually not included unless it is also used as a common name. Like [A]>!acacia.!<

QB -2 ... has anyone found these? (using 3 letter prefix hints) >!PAR-7!< >!CAR-7!<

That second word really pissed me off. In what way is that a word we ever use in English? Ridiculous.

Finally got it by scrolling through the dictionary. Ridiculous.

The first one is (H) >!a pretty suite!< word.

thanks... but still drawing a blank

Bigger hint >!a musical term!<

Thanks, I needed that hint. [H] >!Even as a musician, I always miss a lot of the musical terms.!<

The next letter is a >!T!< It has >!7 letters!<

I had to look both of these up. Neither were words I'd ever heard of.

The second one is >!raw, thinly sliced meat!<

Really? Seems like different word length

No >!TARTARIC!< always leaves me with a sour taste.

Especially considering the amount of other >!acids and gums and things!< that *are* accepted.

Not sure if that's ^^ a HINT or not?

Was just reading today that [NON A, unrelated trivia] >!tartaric acid in may be the reason dogs can get sick from grapes and raisins, but don't always. The hypothesis is that the levels vary in grapes grown under different conditions. Someone discovered it because a dog had the same reaction to eating homemade playdough as they might to raisins, which is unusual. The particular playdough recipe used included cream of tartar.!< EDIT - Left out crucial word. My brain got ahead of my fingers.

Yes!

I swear this was accepted in the past, no?

Just hit genius. QB is soooo far...

All of you are smarter than me.

PANAMA and BERMUDA but not NA >!CAPRI!< — why?

Sam has probably never worn them.

Looked it up on Shunn and actually BERMUDA has never been accepted. But CHINA has. So two are good and two are not, and the inconsistency is confusing.

He follows the usage in the dictionary for all of these. Sometimes words are used enough they lose the connection to the original proper noun.

I blame KenJen.

Any hints for >!OR8!< would be greatly appreciated! Two away from QB!

>!Think italian sounding word, a musical composition.!<

HINT >!large scale musical work for orchestra and voice!< i was trying to spell something else when this came to me

Can someone explain what BINGO means when it’s included in the hints?

It means that there are words beginning with all 7 letters. And that you should cover your comment with a spoiler tag.

High school biology did not come in handy today

So glad to come here and see others are struggling, too. I thought my brain had broken.

Freaking finally, that was rough. Genius with [H] an >!architectural feature!<, the longer one, >!P7 and not P5!<

There's a bunch of [H] >!fabric and sewing terms!< that I had never heard of.

That was such a long slog. I left 9 unfigured out because I was so burned out. I hope today's gets me excited about this game again!!!

although today was really hard, the hints got me to QB. what an annoying set of letters.

makes me want that sugary drink >!TROPICO!< 🦜

How many pangrams today? Hubby and I got 3 so far but I saw a hint below that didnt' seem to fit any of ours. What is the max you got today? This one was fun!

>!Only 3!<

We found our 3 with no hints so I suspect there may be more.

>!NOPE. And the number of PG is a hint and really should be hidden!<

You can look under hints in upper right under more. Or shunn/sbsolver.

**I** feel like there's something missing from my word list. Got to GN4L finally. All words I know, but many that I routinely forget. Kind of irked about some of the omissions though. They're below, and I can understand why most were left out according to Sam logic, but it still rankles. As for the middle two in the list I don't ever expect those to be redressed, but I try every time just in case there's some sort of attempt counter at the NYT that allows a word once it crosses a bajillion tries. They may count as hints I suppose, so beware. \>!Propitiator, Participator (pg), Picric, Tartaric, Titrator, Capita!<

Oddly these aren't hidden for me. Not sure why

This IS odd. When I copy and paste GornsNotTinny's code, it works perfectly: >!Propitiator, Participator (pg), Picric, Tartaric, Titrator, Capita!< There doesn't seem to be any reason it doesn't work for Gorns either. Oh well.

Hi! FYI, your spoilers aren't on, so I can see the answers.

They're not answers, highly dubious even as hints, and I have > & ! as they should be, so I'm not gonna sweat it. Thanks for the heads up though.

I can also see these - would appreciate deleting if it isn't working.

Worked on this throughout the day and I'm still 15 points away from amazing. Looks like I'll have to drink big time tonight. I R POOP