Bee Roots for 2025-07-01

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
  • Letters: B/EGMNOY
  • Words: 29
  • Points: 104
  • Pangrams: 1
Source: pngwing.com

Table content

root #answers coveredanswer's first letterclue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...)
11BPast participle of “to exist” (“How have you … doing?”)
21BArchaic “shoo!”; compound exclamation
31BWet muddy ground too soft to support something heavy; become stuck in such a place, verb (negotiations …ed down)
41BNickname of “Casablanca” ♂ lead, or 1 over par in golf
51BImaginary spirits used to frighten kids, compound pangram; ends in ♂ plural
61BIt explodes, noun/verb
71BFrozen dome-shaped dessert
81BCandy, or 2X “good" in French
92BSkeleton part, or what dogs chew & bury; study intensely
101BWater pipe for smoking weed, or sound of a large bell
111BPaired small drum held between the knees
121BScottish “attractive” lass, or Prince Charlie adj.
131BSmall ape related to chimps
141BBreast, slang
151B“Owie” you kiss & make better, mistake, or what 2 ghosts say
161BSeabird with colorful feet, or gag "prize"
172BSound of explosion or subwoofer
181BFavor, poetic (grant me a …), noun
191BBelonging to an earlier era, adj.; or a past occurrence, usually-plural noun
221BPrecious or semiprecious stone
202EBlack, poetic; and/or black wood (“… & Ivory”)
211EShort form of non-binary or non-black
231GSmall fish with a sucker on its underside, NOT a Mongolian desert
241NBeginner, gamer slang
251OHeed, verb (unlike a cat, a well-trained dog will … commands to “stay” & “sit”)
261ODouble reed orchestra-tuning instrument

About this site

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