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That may be the target, but there have been a handful of Spelling Bees with less than 20 words in the answer list. For instance, March 27, 2023 had 16 answers:

> MORTIFY, FORTIFY, FIFTY, FORTY, MOTIF, FIRM, FOOT, FORM, FORT, FROM, IFFY, MIFF, RIFF, RIFT, ROOF, TIFF

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Very possible. The've loosened the rules have a bit since I originally generated the puzzles e.g. they now allow more than one vowel, i+n+g and e+d are allowed in puzzles, possibly more

> The've loosened the rules have a bit since I originally generated the puzzles e.g. they now allow more than one vowel, ….

The original Bees allowed only one vowel? That must have made it really tough to get long Bees!

Maybe it was 2. It's been a while..

the "ed" and "ing" puzzles are just annoying.

Toot, trot, tort, and moot aren't legal?

You have to use the center letter, whatever it was.

From the list of words, I think F was the required (central) letter.

As others have pointed out, all words must have the center letter, which was "F" on this day, the outer letters were "I M O R T Y"

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