NYT Spelling Bee for October 9 (Spoilers!)

Thread Games
1

Here’s another Spelling Bee thread. The game wants 244 points and I just don’t have the energy to slog through it by myself.

Here are the rules: Try to make as many words as you can with the following 7 letters. Letters may be repeated, but they must contain the letter N and be at least 4 letters. Scoring is:

4 letters: 1 point
5 letters: 5 points
6 letters: 6 points, etc.

A pangram gets an additional 7 points; a pangram is a word that uses all the letters. We have to get to 244 points to get to Genius level, and there are 64 total words, for a total of 349 points, that the NY Times recognizes for this puzzle. Here are the letters:

Nacilov

Again, letters may repeat in the word, but they must use the letter N at least once. Here’s what I have so far, for 58 points:

  • Anal
  • Annal
  • Anvil
  • Coin
  • Colon
  • Colonic
  • Conic
  • Laconic
  • Lain
  • Lanolin
  • Loan
  • Loin
  • Loon
  • Naan
  • Nana
  • Noon
  • Vain
  • Vanilla

Let’s show the NY Times who the smartest and hippest people are!

2

You got “loin” but you left out “lion”.

3

Violin
Clan
Nail
Volcano

4

It’s weird how that happens. I got colonic and only got colon a few minutes later.

5

TOWP, thanks!

Volcano led to volcanic, which is the pangram! ETA: Actually there are two pangrams in total.

Ah, I see you’ve edited out the ones that are no good. To everyone else, don’t forget the N!

6

Nova
Naval
Canon
Cannon

7

I’ll add:

Cannoli
Lanai
Canola

8

Villain

9

Niacin
Icon
Clinic
Clinical

10

…I take it we can’t use “Cinco” or “Lincoln”?

11

Correct. English-only (except some really common foreign words – I tried cinco and no luck) and no proper names.

ETA: Adding “iconic” given the “icon” prompt above.

12

Iconic
Oilcan

13

Beat you to it. But now that you mention it: nonvolcanic, given the “volcanic” prompt? And how about nonvocal, and nonionic, and noniconic, and noncanonical, and so on? (And, well, canonical.)

14

No luck with nonvolcanic, etc., except for nonvocal. Added ionic and canonical.

15

Nonoval?
Nonconical?
(Also: Conical)

16

Conical yes, the other two, no luck.

17

Anion

18

And, anionic!

ETA: And, onion! How do we get anionic before onion? The brain is strange.

19

And canal!

20

Cilia.

I came late to this party.