- Letters: U/ABELMN
- Words: 44
- Points: 183
- Pangrams: 1
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The table provides clues for the roots of words in today's NY Times Spelling Bee. You're responsible for prefixes, suffixes,
tense changes, plurals, doubling consonants before suffixes, and alternate spellings of roots. An exception:
since Sam won't allow S, when the root contains an S, the clue may be for a plural or suffixed form. "Mice" for example.
If a clue isn't self-explanatory, try googling it. And if AI tries to be too helpful, try prefixing your search with "word for" or "word meaning".
The TL;DR about the site comes after the table.
Past clues are available here |
Today's puzzle
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Table content
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| root # | answers covered | answer's first letter | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | A | Blank book where you can keep your pictures; collection of songs for sale (The White …) |
| 3 | 1 | A | Egg white before it's cooked, pangram |
| 4 | 1 | A | Graduate, noun, Latin abbr. |
| 5 | 1 | A | ♀ graduate, from Latin |
| 6 | 1 | A | Graduate, from Latin |
| 7 | 1 | A | Yearly, adj. |
| 8 | 1 | A | Void a marriage |
| 10 | 1 | B | Small, showy trinket or decoration |
| 11 | 1 | B | Boyfriend, or actor Bridges (French for handsome) |
| 12 | 1 | B | Primary color, neither red nor green |
| 13 | 1 | B | Flower shaped like something that rings, in the primary color that isn't red or gree, compound |
| 14 | 1 | B | Southern good ole boy |
| 15 | 1 | B | Thin sphere of liquid enclosing air or another gas (the kids loved blowing soap …s) |
| 16 | 1 | B | Light-producing globe, head of garlic, or what you plant to get a tulip |
| 17 | 1 | B | ♂ cow |
| 18 | 1 | B | Move, speak, or act in a confused manner; or a dating app |
| 19 | 1 | B | This puzzle’s logo, compound |
| 39 | 1 | B | Not able to feel |
| 20 | 1 | L | Hawaiian BBQ |
| 21 | 1 | L | Use oil to reduce friction and make something work better |
| 22 | 1 | L | Soothe (… into a false sense of security), verb; or a pause in activity, noun |
| 23 | 1 | L | Doozy, or “To Sir With Love” singer |
| 24 | 1 | L | Measure of light output, noun |
| 25 | 1 | L | Roman moon goddess, or nutrition bar brand |
| 26 | 1 | L | Moon, French (Debussy’s “Clair de …”) |
| 27 | 2 | L | ½–moon shaped fingertip base white area (Latin "little moon") |
| 29 | 1 | M | Done by hand, adj. (… labor); or instruction book, noun |
| 30 | 1 | M | Wound by tearing & scratching, or Star Wars Sith Lord (Darth …), gerund form is a pangram |
| 31 | 1 | M | List of things you can order in a restaurant |
| 32 | 1 | M | Pack animal that’s an offspring of a ♂ donkey & ♀ horse; or a backless shoe |
| 33 | 1 | M | Think over, heat cider or wine, verb; or actor Martin |
| 34 | 1 | M | Speak indistinctly & quietly |
| 35 | 1 | M | Loose, brightly-colored Hawaiian dress with a double name |
| 36 | 2 | N | Massive interstellar cloud of dust and gas in space, from Latin for cloud |
| 37 | 1 | N | Small knob or lump |
| 38 | 1 | N | Having no legal or binding force; invalid |
| 39 | 1 | N | Not able to feel |
| 1 | 1 | U | Having the power, skill, means, or opportunity to do something, adj. (She was … to walk at 14 months), negated noun form is a pangram |
| 9 | 1 | U | Prohibit, verb |
| 28 | 1 | U | Adult ♂ |
| 40 | 2 | U | Forearm bone opposite radius |
This site provides clues for a day's New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle. It follows in Kevin Davis' footsteps. The original set of 4,500 clues came from him, and they still make up about three quarters of the current clue set.
The "Bee Roots" approach is to provide explicit clues for root words, not every word. As logophiles, we are pretty good at putting on prefixes and suffixes, changing tense, and forming plurals (including Latin plurals!). The clues cover root words, arranged alphabetically by root word, with a count of words in the puzzle that come from each root. For example, if a puzzle includes ROAM and ROAMING, there will be a clue for ROAM and a count of 2. The root may not appear in the puzzle at all; for example, the 2021-07-23 Bee included ICED, DEICE, and DEICED. For such a puzzle, the clue would be for ICE with a word count of 3.
The Bee Roots approach involves judgement sometimes. For example, if a puzzle includes LOVE, LOVED, and LOVELY, how many roots are needed to cover them? LOVE and LOVED share the root LOVE, certainly, but LOVELY is tricky. LOVE is part of its etymology, but by now, the word means "exquisitely beautiful," which is a lot farther from the meaning of LOVE than swithcing to past tense. I'm inclined to treat LOVE and LOVELY as separate roots. You may not agree, which is fine. Another thing we logophiles share is a LOVE of arguing about words on social media.
A few words can have one meaning as a suffixed form and another as a stand-alone word. EVENING, for example. In those cases I will use the meaning that I think is more common.
One last complication, until another one pops up: a few roots have multiple spellings, for example LOLLYGAG and LALLYGAG. Depending on the day's letters, and maybe even the editor's whims, one or both could be in the puzzle's answer list. With such roots, you could see a word count of 2, even if there are no applicable prefixes or suffixes.
I will do my best to keep this site up to date and helpful (I hope). Check it out, and tweet feedback to @donswartwout Tweet to @donswartwout