Bee Roots for 2025-10-08

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: N/ADEUWX
  • Words: 42
  • Points: 195
  • Pangrams: 1
Source: newscientist.com

Table content

root #answers coveredanswer's first letterclue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...)
12AMath term for a number which is summed with another (the “1” or “2” in 1 + 2 = 3)
22ABuilding add-on (“The Learning …”)
171AOpposite of old
32D1st appearance of light in the sky
42DNot alive
51DCollege administrator, or actor James of “Rebel Without a Cause”
71DMake persistent demands, verb; Dull grayish-brown color, noun/adjective
81DA mound of sand (… buggy), or Herbert desert planet book series & films
182DUnclothed (in the …), adj.
91EFinal part of something, especially a period of time, an activity, or a story, noun/verb
102EProvide with a quality or ability
111EA group of 9, from Greek (such as the 9 Egyptian deities “The Great …”)
121NIndiaan flaat breaad
131NNothing, Spanish
141NGrandma, slang; or Peter Pan dog
152NRequire; verb/noun
161NHawaiian goose & state bird
181NUnclothed (in the …), adj.
41UNot alive
61UExpected at or planned for at a certain time; what is owed
151URequire; verb/noun
221UWhat honeycombs are made of, noun; or what you put on a floor or a car to make it shiny, noun/verb; or get larger (if you're talking about the moon), verb
231UTaper someone off of, esp. mother’s milk
242UMarry
251UUnwanted plant, noun, or remove them from the garden, verb; or slang for marijuana
191WWhat a magician, wizard, or TSA agent waves
202WDecrease (esp. moon), NOT Batman alter ego Bruce
211W“Would like to do,” slang contraction
221WWhat honeycombs are made of, noun; or what you put on a floor or a car to make it shiny, noun/verb; or get larger (if you're talking about the moon), verb
232WTaper someone off of, esp. mother’s milk
262WGo, in a non-linear route/meander (said about a person, river, or path)

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