If you play Spelling Bee for a while, you’ll notice there are some words that keep coming up over and over. For example, there are lots of relatively long words that contain only three different letters, so they appear all the time. The other day I thought, “how many of these words can there be”, so I wrote a script: - download all the accepted words for the last two years (about 8300 words) - identify just the words that have more than 4 letters (so, higher scoring) and no more than 3 distinct letters

It turns out there are only about 140 such words, so as a public service I include them here:

abk: babka
abm: mamba
abn: banana
abo: baobab
abu: bubba
aci: acacia
acl: calla
acn: cancan, canna
aco: cacao, cocoa
ade: added
adm: madam
ado: doodad
adr: radar
ady: daddy
ael: allele
afl: alfalfa
agl: algal
agm: gamma, magma
ahl: halal
aht: hatha
akp: kappa
alm: llama, mammal
aln: annal
alp: appall, palapa, papal
aly: allay
am:  mamma
amn: manna
amo: momma
amp: pampa
ant: natant
anw: wanna
any: nanny
aop: poppa
aot: tattoo
apw: papaw, pawpaw
apy: papaya, pappy, yappy
art: attar, ratatat, tartar
ary: array
aty: tatty
bde: bedded, ebbed
bel: belle
bfo: boffo
bho: boohoo
bhu: hubbub
bno: bonbon, bonobo
bo:  booboo
bos: booboos, boobs
bow: bowwow
boy: booby
cde: ceded
cem: emcee
chi: chichi
cho: hooch
cim: mimic
cio: cocci
cir: cirri
civ: civic
cno: cocoon
cor: rococo
de:  deeded
deg: edged, egged
deh: heeded
dei: eddied
dek: deked
dem: deemed, memed
den: ended, needed
dep: peeped, pepped
deu: duded
dew: wedded, weeded
dgo: doggo
dho: hoodoo
div: vivid
dmu: dumdum
dov: voodoo
efm: femme
eft: effete
egl: gelee
eht: teeth, teethe
ein: innie
elm: melee
elv: levee, level
emz: mezze
enp: penne
ent: entente, tenet
ept: teepee, tepee
epv: peeve
epw: peewee, pewee
epy: peppy
equ: queue
etu: tutee
etw: tweet
flu: fluff
gin: gigging, ginning, inning
glo: googol
hor: horror
hot: tooth
how: woohoo
hoy: yoohoo
ijn: jinni
imn: minim
ino: onion
inp: pippin
iny: ninny
ipt: pipit
itu: tutti
koy: kooky
lop: lollop
lot: lotto
mop: pompom
mot: motto
moy: mommy
mru: murmur
mu:  muumuu
muy: mummy, yummy
opw: powwow
opy: poppy
ort: rotor
puy: puppy

Happy Solving!