- Letters: A/DILNOR
- Words: 63
- Points: 235
- 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. And if AI tries to be too helpful, try prefixing your search with "word for" or "word meaning".
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 | Decorate (… with) (Xmas tree, e.g.) |
| 2 | 1 | A | Garlic mayonnaise, from French for garlic |
| 3 | 1 | A | Metal support for fireplace wood (firedog) |
| 4 | 1 | A | Non–Apple phone OS, or humanoid robot (do they dream of electric sheep?) |
| 5 | 1 | A | Yearly record book |
| 6 | 1 | A | Soon, poetically |
| 7 | 1 | A | Opening at the end of the alimentary canal through which solid waste matter leaves the body, adj. form also means uptight |
| 8 | 1 | A | Passion (Latin “to burn”) |
| 9 | 1 | A | Opera solo |
| 10 | 1 | A | Dry (climate or land), adj. |
| 11 | 1 | A | Seed covering |
| 23 | 1 | A | Atom or molecule with a net electric charge |
| 12 | 1 | D | Mild exclamation; or mend holes in socks, verb |
| 13 | 1 | D | What you turn on a rotary phone or radio knob (don't touch that …!) |
| 14 | 1 | D | Arab $, not supper |
| 15 | 1 | D | US currency |
| 16 | 1 | D | Thingamajig, slang; ends in “father” nickname |
| 17 | 1 | D | Spike hammered into a divider between rooms (dead as a …), compound pangram |
| 18 | 1 | D | Mahimahi; or South American freshwater fish with a golden body and red fins |
| 19 | 1 | D | What sink water goes down |
| 20 | 1 | I | Not on the coast |
| 21 | 1 | I | Decorate something by embedding pieces of a different material in it, flush with its surface, compound |
| 22 | 1 | I | Progress (make), usually plural noun, compound, contains street synonym |
| 24 | 1 | L | Animal or criminal den |
| 25 | 1 | L | Hawaiian porch or island |
| 26 | 1 | L | Alight on the ground, verb/noun |
| 27 | 1 | L | ♂ who owns your apartment (compound) |
| 28 | 1 | L | Sheep (wool) oil, used as skin moisturizer |
| 29 | 1 | L | Pig fat for cooking |
| 30 | 2 | L | Put something down |
| 31 | 1 | L | Someone who doesn’t tell the truth |
| 32 | 1 | L | ₺ or ₤, Turkish or old Italian $ |
| 33 | 1 | L | South American grassy plain |
| 34 | 1 | L | A unit of laundry, noun; or to fill up a truck, verb |
| 35 | 1 | L | Borrowed $, noun/verb |
| 36 | 1 | N | Indiaan flaat breaad |
| 37 | 1 | N | Nothing, Spanish |
| 38 | 1 | N | Lowest point, rock-bottom, depths; or below the observer in astronomy |
| 39 | 1 | N | Greek water nymph, or dragonfly larva |
| 40 | 1 | N | Spike that’s hammered, noun/verb |
| 41 | 1 | N | Grandma, slang; or Peter Pan dog |
| 42 | 1 | N | Connecting point |
| 43 | 1 | O | Spoken (… exam), or by mouth (… surgery), adjective |
| 44 | 1 | O | Make someone a priest |
| 45 | 1 | O | Relating to a thing's position in a series, pangram |
| 46 | 1 | R | Nickname of Cpl. O’Reilly in M.A.S.H., or Doppler weather sensor acronym |
| 47 | 1 | R | Modern tire design; or arranged like spokes of a wheel, adj. |
| 48 | 1 | R | Unit of angular measure |
| 49 | 1 | R | AM/FM music & talk device in car & home |
| 50 | 1 | R | Distance from a point on a circle to the center |
| 51 | 1 | R | Harmful gas that seeps into homes; atomic no. 86 |
| 52 | 1 | R | Sudden attack, as in “air” or police;” or insect spray |
| 53 | 1 | R | What a train travels on, or what you hold on stairs |
| 54 | 1 | R | Trains & tracks, compound noun; ends in below (“I’ve been working on the …”) |
| 55 | 1 | R | Liquid precipitation |
| 56 | 1 | R | Kirk’s Yeoman Janice on Star Trek, or South African $ |
| 57 | 1 | R | Slang for odd or suspicious person (short for chosen by chance) |
| 58 | 1 | R | Hindu queen, anagram of liquid precipitation |
| 59 | 1 | R | $ in Iran, Oman, & Yemen |
| 60 | 1 | R | Street ("Abbey …"), or “rocky …” ice cream flavor |
| 61 | 1 | R | Horse with 2–colored coat |
| 62 | 1 | R | Lion “shout” |
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 social media.
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