LEI /LAY.ee/ n. a decorative garland of flowers, usually in the form of a circular band worn around the neck, especially in Hawaii

Spellers need to be particularly on the lookout for that unstressed -ee in its pronunciation, often omitted by those of us outside Hawaii.

And speaking of Hawaii, the crossword enthusiast will need to be familiar with a tad more of its delightful argot in order to spot today’s word hiding behind clues like…

• Luau wear
• Wahine’s gift
• Muumuu accessory
• Pikake garland
• Hula hoop?

I was going to define all those words for you (and yes, they are all legal in Scrabble), but I realized I’ve got the makings of a whole monthly Word of the Day theme buried in this one!

Finally, it’s also worth keeping in the back of your mind that the word lei (this time pronounced /lay/) also refers to the plural of LEU (another spelling bee bullet, pronounced /LAY.oo/), a unit Romanian and Moldovan currency worth 100 BANI.

And that gives me an idea for another monthly theme…