Hint #1
Maybe it’s aMAZEing instead?
Answer
The nine-letter word is LABYRINTH.

There are other words with less letters.  The ones that we recognize as commonly-known words are:
barn, binary, brain, brainy, bran, hint, litany, inlay, lint, nail, rain, rainy, rant, than, thin, thinly, tiny, train, and yarn

That’s 19 words, but the English dictionary recognizes up to 33 words total.  Can you find all of them?