How to Play Letter Hive
Seven letters sit in a hive with one of them in the centre. Make words of four letters or more using only those seven, and every word must contain the centre letter; letters may be repeated as often as you like. A four-letter word scores one point, a longer word scores one point per letter, and a word using all seven letters adds seven more.
The rules, step by step
- 1Seven letters, one in the middleSix letters sit in a ring around a seventh. All seven are always usable; the middle one is the only one that is compulsory.
- 2Every word must contain the centre letterA word built only from the outer six does not count, however long it is. This is the rule that makes the puzzle a puzzle rather than an anagram.
- 3Four letters is the minimumThree-letter words are not accepted, and neither are two. Four and up only, however common the shorter word is.
- 4Letters may be reusedAny of the seven may appear as many times as a word needs. There are not seven tiles on the board, there are seven letters available.
- 5Spell the word, then submit itTap the letters or type them, and press Enter. Backspace deletes the last letter and Escape clears the whole word.
- 6Using all seven pays a bonusA word containing every one of the seven letters scores its length plus seven more. Every hive dealt holds at least one of these.
- 7Climb the ranks, and stop when you likeYour score is a share of everything the hive is worth, and that share names your rank. There is no clock and no limit on entries — close the hive when you are done and it lists what you missed.
Try it — the rules above, running
Loading the word list…
Drone · 0 points
Top of the ladder
Found · 0
- Nothing yet.
New hive deals seven fresh letters at the size you last chose, Shuffle moves the outer six without changing the puzzle, and Hint names the first letter and the length of one word you have missed — never the word — for 3 points. The three-dot menu at the end of the bar holds today’s shared hive, the hive sizes, a close-this-hive button and the keyboard shortcuts. There are no letter shortcuts, because the letters are how you type.
Your statistics · standard
- Played
- 0
- Won
- 0
- Win rate
- 0%
- Streak
- 0
- Best streak
- 0
- Best time
- —
- Best score
- —
This hive size
41 to 90 familiar words, 61 in the middle of the range. The size most people mean by a letter puzzle: enough to keep finding things for half an hour without the list ever looking hopeless.
The ranks
- Drone0%
- Forager2%
- Gatherer5%
- Builder10%
- Keeper18%
- Swarm30%
- Honeymaker45%
- Hive Mind62%
- Whole Hive100%
Keyboard
- A – Z
- Add that letter, if the hive has it
- Enter
- Submit the word
- Backspace
- Delete the last letter
- Esc
- Clear the word
- Space
- Shuffle the outer six
How do you start a hive?
- 1Read the centre letter firstIt is in every answer, so it is the only fixed point the puzzle has. Everything you look for from here contains it.
- 2Take the easy foursTwo or three obvious four-letter words get you onto the ladder and, more usefully, show you which letter pairs this hive is comfortable with.
- 3Check which endings existLook for -ED, -ER, -ING, -LY and -S among the seven. Each one you have is a shelf of words; each one you do not have is a search you can skip.
- 4Go after the word that uses all sevenEvery hive has one. It is the single biggest score on the board and finding it usually reveals several shorter words on the way.
- 5Shuffle and go round againWhen nothing new appears, shuffle the outer six. The puzzle does not change but what you can see in it does.
What makes a word legal here?
- It contains the centre letter at least once.
- It is four letters or longer.
- Every letter in it is one of the seven on the board.
- Any of those seven may be used more than once — that is not a special case, it is the normal one.
- It is in the dictionary. Obscurity is never a reason for rejection; the validation list has 172,823 words in it.
Nothing else is checked. There is no penalty for a wrong guess, no limit on attempts, and no clock — the timer under the board is there to be ignored if you want to ignore it.
How many points is each word worth?
| Word length | Uses all seven? | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | No | 1 |
| 5 | No | 5 |
| 6 | No | 6 |
| 7 | No | 7 |
| 7 | Yes | 14 |
| 9 | Yes | 16 |
Four-letter words scoring one rather than four is deliberate. They are the bulk of any hive — 34% of a standard one's word list — and worth only 7% of it, so the ranks cannot be reached by grinding them.
How far do you have to get to win?
Swarm, which is 30% of everything the familiar words in that hive are worth. The nine ranks run Drone, Forager, Gatherer, Builder, Keeper, Swarm, Honeymaker, Hive Mind and Whole Hive, at 0, 2, 5, 10, 18, 30, 45, 62 and 100 per cent. Reaching Swarm records a win and adds to your streak; going further is entirely up to you, and on a gentle hive emptying the thing completely is a realistic afternoon.
If a hive is too big or too small for the time you have, the three-dot menu changes the size. Gentle hives hold 15 to 40 familiar words, standard hives 41 to 90, and deep hives 91 and up.
How do you win more often?
- Hunt the all-seven word before anything elseThere is always at least one, and it is worth its length plus seven — fourteen points for a seven-letter one, which is as much as fourteen four-letter words. Write the seven letters out in a ring and look for the two or three that have to sit together, such as a lone U after a Q or an obvious -ING.
- Work outwards from the centre letterEvery answer contains it, so it is the only letter you can plan around. Run the other six past it as pairs — CE, EC, CA, AC — and you will find that most of a hive's words start or end with two or three combinations that the centre makes comfortable.
- Mine the endings, but check the letters first-ED, -ER, -ING, -LY and -S each unlock a shelf of words at a stroke, and each is only available if every one of its letters is in the hive. Checking which endings exist takes ten seconds and tells you what shape the whole puzzle is.
- Treat four-letter words as the floor, not the routeThey are 34% of a standard hive's word list and only 7% of its score, so grinding them is the slowest possible way to a rank. Take the ones you see, then go looking for sixes and sevens, which are each worth six or seven of them.
- Shuffle the ring when you stallThe eye settles into a fixed arrangement after a few minutes and stops seeing combinations that were there all along. The shuffle changes nothing about the puzzle — same letters, same centre, same words — and it reliably shakes two or three more words loose.
- Say the vowels out loudMost hives hold two or three vowels, and English will not put four consonants together without one. Pronouncing the awkward clusters is faster than spelling them: if you cannot say it, it is usually not a word, and if you can, it usually is.
Common questions about letter hive
- Is there a time limit in Letter Hive?
- No. The clock under the board counts up so you can see how long a hive took, and nothing at all happens when it gets large. A deep hive is meant to be left open and come back to; the board saves itself.
- What happens if I close a hive early?
- It scores where it stands and then lists every familiar word you did not find, longest first. That list is the part worth reading — it is where you discover the seven letters spelled something you would have sworn was not a word.
- Does a hint give the word away?
- No. It names the first letter and the length of one word you have missed, and how many words share that shape. It costs 3 points, and the work of finding the word is still entirely yours.
- Can I play Letter Hive offline?
- Yes. The dictionary and the generator are both in the page, so once it has loaded there is nothing to fetch. That is also why a hive is a pure function of its puzzle number: there is no server to ask what today's letters are.
Ready to stop reading? Play letter hive on the full board, with controls and statistics tailored to that game.