- Letters: P/AILMRT
- Words: 52
- Points: 207
- 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 | Separately (… from that), or in pieces (taken …) |
| 2 | 1 | A | Horrify (his tasteless jokes … me) |
| 3 | 1 | A | Soviet admin system (…-chik) |
| 4 | 1 | A | Space underneath your shoulder, where your deodorant goes, compound |
| 5 | 1 | I | Weaken or damage something, especially a human function (visual …) |
| 6 | 1 | I | African antelope or Chevy sedan |
| 7 | 1 | I | Bestow |
| 23 | 1 | I | Incomplete |
| 8 | 1 | L | Illuminating device |
| 9 | 1 | L | Walk with a bad leg, verb; or soggy noodle adj. |
| 10 | 1 | P | Bucket, NOT white-faced |
| 11 | 1 | P | Twosome (socks, aces, e.g.) |
| 12 | 1 | P | Traditional Mexican shelter roofed with palm leaves or branches, esp. on a beach, noun |
| 13 | 1 | P | Roof of the mouth |
| 14 | 1 | P | Resembling a royal residence (Buckingham?); spacious & splendid, adj. |
| 15 | 1 | P | Figurative dark cloud, or funeral "bearer" |
| 16 | 1 | P | Underside of hand, or coconut tree |
| 17 | 1 | P | Arthropod antenna for touch & taste, or start of medical exam by touch term |
| 18 | 1 | P | S Am treeless grassland |
| 19 | 1 | P | Father, slang |
| 20 | 1 | P | Pontiff adj. |
| 21 | 1 | P | Small rounded bump on body part such as tongue (from Latin) |
| 22 | 1 | P | Some but not all, or line combed into hair |
| 23 | 1 | P | Incomplete |
| 24 | 1 | P | Musical suite of variations, usually for a solo instrument |
| 25 | 1 | P | Tablet of medicine |
| 26 | 1 | P | Tall vertical structure that supports or decorates a building; or, figuratively, someone who reliably supports a group (… of the community) |
| 27 | 1 | P | ♂ who controls prostitutes, noun/verb |
| 28 | 1 | P | Ground-dwelling bird that wags its tail & is named for its song |
| 29 | 1 | P | Flat bread with a pocket, often dipped in hummus or filled with falafel |
| 30 | 1 | P | Rhyming, usually hyphenated, adv. for rapid beating (my heart went …) |
| 31 | 1 | P | Hair braid, noun/verb |
| 32 | 1 | P | Construction map; omit end vowel in dish synonym |
| 33 | 1 | P | Baby carriage in Britspeak |
| 34 | 1 | P | Brit slang for a fool or butt (“…fall”); similar to “Jurassic Park” actor Chris |
| 35 | 1 | P | Stiffly formal and respectable (… and proper) |
| 36 | 1 | P | Original or primitive; or Arthur Janov's scream |
| 37 | 1 | P | Spend time making minor adjustments to one's hair, makeup, or clothes |
| 38 | 1 | R | Sloped walkway |
| 39 | 1 | R | Defensive wall of a castle or walled city, with a wide flat top (what Trump said the Continental Army rammed before taking over the airports) |
| 40 | 1 | R | Fascinated, mesmerized; adj. |
| 41 | 1 | R | Device to catch large rodents, or a run-down place, compound |
| 42 | 1 | T | Red light at back of car, compound |
| 43 | 1 | T | Pack down (start of Florida city on a bay) |
| 44 | 1 | T | Spanish bar snack (usually plural) |
| 45 | 1 | T | Animal similar in appearance to a pig, lives in Central & S America & SE Asia |
| 46 | 1 | T | Waterproof sheet used as outdoor roof, abbr. |
| 47 | 1 | T | Native Am conical hut; 3 spellings |
| 48 | 1 | T | Common bland-tasting fish |
| 49 | 1 | T | Walk heavily or noisily, verb; or vagrant, noun; or promiscuous woman, derogatory slang noun |
| 50 | 1 | T | Device for catching things |
| 51 | 1 | T | Journey, noun (you’ve won a … to Paris!), or stumble (… over your own 2 feet), 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