- Letters: O/ABCELP
- Words: 56
- Points: 175
- 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.
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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | A | Word for a sweet, fizzy alcoholic drink |
| 2 | 1 | A | Distribute (resources) for a particular purpose |
| 3 | 1 | A | Sunburn gel from “… vera” plant |
| 4 | 1 | B | African tree |
| 5 | 1 | B | Fast jazz style (“Cowboy …” anime series) |
| 6 | 1 | B | Gelatinous mass, or 1950s alien horror film |
| 7 | 1 | B | Group of like-minded voters |
| 8 | 1 | B | Electronic tone similar to profanity cover sound; or mistake (usually with –ER); or a weakly hit fly ball in baseball that is too high for the infielders and too short for the outfielders |
| 9 | 1 | B | Taiwan sweet tea with gelatin pearls |
| 10 | 1 | B | Type of “head” doll that nods when moved |
| 11 | 1 | B | Italian game similar to lawn bowling |
| 12 | 1 | B | Thrown weighted string weapon |
| 13 | 1 | B | Cotton seed target for weevil |
| 14 | 1 | B | Western string tie |
| 15 | 1 | B | Breast, slang |
| 16 | 1 | B | “Owie” you kiss & make better, mistake, or what 2 ghosts say |
| 17 | 1 | B | Low-pitched horn sound, noun/verb; or a gentle, playful strike, especially on the nose, noun/verb |
| 18 | 1 | C | Bean source of Hershey Bars |
| 19 | 1 | C | Caribbean veg dish |
| 20 | 1 | C | Mafia boss, or moveable bar on a guitar |
| 21 | 1 | C | Yo-Yo Ma’s instrument (also Pablo Casals') |
| 22 | 1 | C | Combo sex & waste cavity in non-mammals |
| 23 | 1 | C | Sound of a horse’s hooves on a hard surface |
| 24 | 1 | C | “Dirty fuel” dug from mines; what Santa puts in your stocking if you’re bad |
| 25 | 1 | C | Repair or make, especially shoes; make or put together roughly or hastily |
| 26 | 1 | C | 1st part of popular soda brand name |
| 27 | 1 | C | Hot winter drink with marshmallows, or the powder it’s made from |
| 28 | 1 | C | Pepsi & RC dark brown soda flavor |
| 29 | 1 | C | The act of working with someone to produce or create something, abbrev |
| 30 | 1 | C | “Warm” antonym, or “neat!” |
| 31 | 1 | C | Chicken pen, noun; or confine in a small space, verb (…ed up) |
| 32 | 1 | C | Deal effectively with something difficult |
| 33 | 1 | E | Run away to marry |
| 34 | 1 | L | Brain section, or part of ear most commonly pierced |
| 35 | 1 | L | Wolf, Spanish |
| 36 | 1 | L | From a nearby area, or a train making all stops |
| 37 | 1 | L | Place where something happens (exotic …) |
| 38 | 1 | L | Crazy, Spanish |
| 39 | 1 | L | Hang out or droop, as a dog’s tongue |
| 40 | 1 | L | Move in an ungainly way in a series of clumsy paces or bounds |
| 41 | 1 | L | Closed curve |
| 42 | 1 | L | Run like a wolf, with bounding strides |
| 43 | 1 | O | Double reed orchestra-tuning instrument |
| 44 | 1 | O | Margarine |
| 45 | 1 | O | Gemstone from Australia, October birthstone |
| 46 | 1 | P | Diet based on the types of foods presumed to have been eaten by early humans |
| 47 | 1 | P | Humanity, or celeb mag with annual “sexiest man” |
| 48 | 1 | P | Harmless medicine or procedure prescribed for the psychological benefit of the patient, pangram |
| 49 | 1 | P | Sound of Alka–Seltzer before the fizz |
| 50 | 1 | P | What a firefighter slides down |
| 51 | 1 | P | Opinion survey, homophone of above (straw, Gallup, e.g.) |
| 52 | 1 | P | Croquet on horseback |
| 53 | 1 | P | Swimming venue |
| 54 | 1 | P | Tire out (I’m …ed); or defecate, slang verb/noun |
| 55 | 1 | P | Leo, Francis, Pius, etc. (head of Roman Catholic Church) |
| 56 | 1 | P | Daddy |
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 Twitter.
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