- Letters: I/DEFLOP
- Words: 70
- Points: 328
- 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. 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 | 2 | D | Sully, mar, spoil, desecrate |
| 2 | 1 | D | Openly resist or refuse to obey |
| 3 | 1 | D | Treat someone or something as a god |
| 4 | 1 | D | Place to get cold cuts |
| 5 | 2 | D | Pass time aimlessly or unproductively |
| 6 | 1 | D | Cease to live |
| 7 | 1 | D | Phallus-shaped sex toy |
| 8 | 1 | D | Pickle spice |
| 9 | 1 | D | 1–way semiconductor with 2 terminals |
| 10 | 1 | D | Put something down quickly into liquid, verb; or brief swim, noun |
| 11 | 1 | D | Cell or organism with two complete sets of chromosomes |
| 12 | 1 | D | Equal, opposite, and separated electric charges or magnetic potentials |
| 13 | 1 | D | Move on a mobile platform, for example a movie camera, noun/verb |
| 14 | 1 | E | Water swirl, NOT clothier Bauer |
| 15 | 1 | E | Instruct or improve someone, morally or intellectually |
| 16 | 2 | E | Leave out a sound or syllable when speaking |
| 17 | 1 | F | Mammal of the cat family |
| 18 | 2 | F | Violin, especially when used to play folk music, noun/verb |
| 19 | 1 | F | Medieval for feudal land or area of control; often has –DOM suffix |
| 20 | 2 | F | What a farmer works in, or what football is played on, noun/verb |
| 21 | 2 | F | Small flute used with a drum in military bands, noun/verb |
| 22 | 2 | F | Folder of related papers, or tool for smoothing edges (fingernails, e.g.), noun/verb, negated past tense is a pangram |
| 23 | 2 | F | Add material until the container or hole is at capacity, negated past tense is a pangram |
| 24 | 1 | F | Gesture made by the sudden forcible straightening of a finger curled up against the thumb; homophone of the late Queen Elizabeth’s late husband Prince … |
| 25 | 2 | F | Turn over pancakes to cook the bottoms, verb; or comedian … Wilson |
| 26 | 2 | F | Light sandal, typically of plastic or rubber, with a thong between the big and second toe, noun; or repeatedly change positions on some issue, verb, gerund form and past tense are pangrams |
| 27 | 1 | F | What airplanes and most birds can do, verb; or common insect, noun; or go high in the air (baseball noun/verb) |
| 28 | 2 | F | Thin aluminum sheet for wrapping leftovers, noun; or thwart, verb (Curses! …ed again) |
| 29 | 1 | F | A book (A Shakespeare first … is quite valuable), a page in a book, or a book size; from Latin for “leaf” |
| 30 | 1 | F | Slang for eating & cooking enthusiast |
| 31 | 2 | I | Not doing anything; or, said of an engine, running but not in gear |
| 32 | 1 | I | Punk rocker Billy; “American …” TV singing contest; or public figure you worship (…-ize) |
| 33 | 1 | I | Compound made with element 53 |
| 34 | 1 | L | Cover for the top of a jar; or skin that covers your eye |
| 35 | 1 | L | Be in a horizontal resting position, or say something false |
| 36 | 1 | L | Cereal Mikey prefers, board game, or “death” antonym |
| 37 | 1 | L | Body part with which you kiss |
| 38 | 1 | L | Chemical term for a fatty acid |
| 39 | 1 | L | Fat-sucking procedure, abbr. |
| 40 | 1 | L | Hard candy on a stick |
| 41 | 1 | O | Viscous liquid used for lubrication, noun/verb; (food) a fat that's liquid at room temperature |
| 42 | 1 | O | Having lived for a long time |
| 43 | 1 | O | Mixture, or spicy Spanish stew, NOT margarine |
| 44 | 1 | O | Skateboard jump, or Stan’s slapstick partner |
| 45 | 1 | O | Drug class with a current epidemic (OxyContin, e.g) |
| 46 | 2 | P | Urinate, slang (house training small dogs might require a … pad) |
| 47 | 1 | P | Multicolored (… Piper of Hamelin) |
| 48 | 1 | P | Trivial or senseless talk; nonsense |
| 49 | 2 | P | Heap, stack (dirty laundry, raked leaves, etc.), noun/verb |
| 50 | 2 | P | Tablet of medicine |
| 51 | 2 | P | Copper or plastic tube that carries water, noun; or to move liquid in one, verb; decorate a cake with icing |
| 52 | 1 | P | Ballét bénd |
| 53 | 1 | P | A layer of material, noun (…wood, or two-… toilet paper); or provide someone with food and/or drink continuously or insistently, verb |
| 54 | 1 | P | Disease that put FDR in a wheelchair |
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