If you know more than one language, you could have a “secret weapon” in the Spelling Bee. English is a Germanic language that has borrowed substantially from Latin , Greek , and French . Knowing the roots of these languages gives you a good idea which combinations of letters are legitimate.
French Influence
If you speak French, you will recognize a lot of Bee terms with silent vowels or particular endings like “-EAU” or “-ETTE”. The Bee generally eschews foreign terms, especially direct foreign words, but has an affinity for English words of French origin. This can be very handy for hunting down spelling bee pangrams, which frequently employ these intricate structures.
Greek and Latin Roots
People who speak Spanish, Italian and Romanian have a tremendous edge with the Latin roots. A lot of the scientific and technical spelling bee answers come right out of Latin. If you know the “ root + suffix ” structure of these languages you can “ build ” words in the hive even if you haven ’t encountered them previously in English. You can practice this skill by reviewing our scripps word lists.
The Bad Side: False Friends
The only drawback is the 'fake friend'. You might get a word that is completely okay in Spanish but spelt a little differently in English. If you are unclear about the English form of a loanword, always verify your spelling with our solver. If you want to see if your word was accepted in the past, browse our archive.
Our Scripps word lists are sorted by language origin to help expand your linguistic horizons. And for your daily practice, our spelling bee solutions are updated every morning at 3 AM ET.