- Letters: O/AIMNTY
- Words: 56
- Points: 297
- Pangrams: 2
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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 | Protein building block acid, or a NH₂ group, noun |
| 2 | 1 | A | A supply of bullets, slang abbreviation |
| 3 | 1 | A | Smelly cleaning fluid, NH₃ |
| 4 | 1 | A | Slang abbr. for a prenatal test that takes fluid from a uterus with a needle, noun |
| 5 | 1 | A | Study of the names, shapes, sizes, and connections of your body parts (Gray's …), adj. form is a pangram |
| 6 | 1 | A | Bring to life (cartoons), verb; or living, adj. |
| 7 | 1 | A | Orange-red dye obtained from the pulp of a tropical fruit, used for coloring foods and fabric; also used as a condiment; or the tree it comes from (Bixa orellana) |
| 8 | 1 | A | Irritate, vex, irk |
| 9 | 1 | A | Ceremonially smear someone with oil, or designate as a successor |
| 10 | 1 | A | Soon, poetically |
| 11 | 1 | A | Being present without being named (he agreed to the interview on condition of …), pangram |
| 12 | 1 | A | Gray metal element, atomic number 51, pangram |
| 13 | 2 | A | Word opposite in meaning to another ("bad" is an … of "good") |
| 14 | 1 | A | Basic unit of matter, “… Ant” superhero, noun/adjective (… bomb), adj. form that means just one of these is a pangram |
| 19 | 1 | A | Atom or molecule with a net electric charge |
| 39 | 1 | A | Write something, for example music, in a specialized system; or write comments in the margins of a book |
| 15 | 1 | I | Copy someone’s speech or mannerisms |
| 16 | 1 | I | Cause to begin, or admit into a secret society; verb; or novice, noun |
| 17 | 1 | I | Extremely close & personal (… apparel), noun form is a pangram |
| 18 | 1 | I | Enter (go … the room), preposition |
| 20 | 1 | I | 9th Greek letter, I; or extremely small amount |
| 49 | 1 | I | Character of sound, a sound (dial or ring-); noun; give greater strength or firmness to a body or a muscle; verb |
| 21 | 1 | M | ♀ parent, slang |
| 22 | 1 | M | Wealth that’s an evil influence, per the New Testament & Milton |
| 23 | 1 | M | Craze, noun (Beatle-…) |
| 24 | 1 | M | Hellman’s sandwich spread, slang abbr. |
| 25 | 1 | M | Underling, as seen in “Despicable Me” |
| 26 | 1 | M | Sound of pain or sexual pleasure (Harry Potter’s ghost “…ing Myrtle”) |
| 27 | 1 | M | Water ditch surrounding a castle |
| 28 | 1 | M | Mother, familiar |
| 29 | 1 | M | 1–channel sound abbreviation, or glandular fever “kissing disease” abbreviation |
| 30 | 1 | M | Singular tag for famous people (Cher, Moses, Socrates, Beyoncé) |
| 31 | 1 | M | Sound that is unchanging in pitch (“She spoke in a … that put me to sleep”) |
| 32 | 2 | M | NASA Apollo missions landed on or circled it |
| 33 | 1 | M | Irrelevant, in law (it’s a … point), adj.; or obscure verb meaning to raise a topic for discussion |
| 34 | 1 | M | Action by which things change position, or parliamentary proposal; noun |
| 35 | 1 | M | Short phrase encapsulating beliefs of an institution (Marines’ “Semper Fi”) |
| 36 | 1 | N | Country, or temperance activist Carrie |
| 37 | 1 | N | Propose a candidate for election or an honor |
| 38 | 1 | N | 12:00, midday, 🕛 |
| 39 | 1 | N | Write something, for example music, in a specialized system; or write comments in the margins of a book |
| 40 | 1 | N | Vague idea, or small sewing accessory |
| 41 | 1 | O | Grain that is Quaker's specialty |
| 42 | 1 | O | Leave out, verb |
| 43 | 2 | O | Veg that makes you cry when cut (for some, this is the "dreaded root veg") |
| 44 | 1 | O | Preposition when mounting an animal or boarding a large vehicle |
| 45 | 1 | O | Turkish Empire; or low, upholstered seat or footstool without a back or arms |
| 46 | 1 | T | Skin “ink” |
| 47 | 1 | T | Ketchup & ragù fruit |
| 48 | 1 | T | New Zealand small bird (Magnum, P.I star 1st name + breast, slang) |
| 50 | 1 | T | Broadway award, or Maj. Nelson on "Jeannie" |
| 51 | 1 | T | Animated film or character, slang abbr. (car…) |
| 52 | 1 | T | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
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