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. The TL;DR about the site comes after the table.
Past clues are available here
Table content
| words | root 1st letter | clue |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | C | Cylindrical metal container, noun; be capable, verb, fire from a job (slang verb); |
| 1 | C | Prison “room,” or smallest unit of an organism |
| 2 | C | Where rain comes from, noun/verb |
| 2 | C | Hint, or what a detective seeks (Get a…!), noun/verb |
| 2 | C | Cooperate in a secret or unlawful way |
| 2 | C | Finish something; arrive at a judgement by reasoning |
| 1 | C | Deep ravine, or lava flow; from French “to flow” (Grand…Dam in WA) |
| 2 | C | Hold close for affection |
| 1 | C | Something that signals an actor or other performer, noun/verb |
| 2 | C | Remove unwanted from the herd |
| 2 | D | Draw a logical conclusion |
| 2 | D | Believe true even when you know better |
| 2 | D | Publicly declare to be wrong or evil, inform against someone |
| 1 | D | A playing card with the number 2 on it (the…of spades), noun |
| 2 | D | Perform an action, achieve or complete something; hairstyle (American slang); social event (British slang) |
| 2 | D | Slang for “guy” (Aerosmith “…Looks Like a Lady”), noun; dress up elaborately, verb |
| 1 | D | Expected at or planned for at a certain time; what is owed |
| 2 | D | Pistol fight at dawn |
| 2 | D | Not shiny, adjective/verb |
| 1 | D | Make persistent demands, verb; Dull grayish-brown color, noun/adjective |
| 1 | D | Stupid person (he has to sit in the corner & wear a…cap) |
| 1 | D | A mound of sand (…buggy), or Herbert desert planet book series & films |
| 1 | D | Shoulder-shrug non-response to a question; “I have no idea”; slang |
| 2 | E | Formal verb meaning to draw out something hidden |
| 2 | E | Dodge, or fail to be grasped |
| 2 | E | Provide with a quality or ability |
| 3 | L | Sound at high volume |
| 2 | L | Soothe (…into a false sense of security), verb; or a pause in activity, noun |
| 1 | L | Doozy, or “To Sir With Love” singer |
| 1 | L | Moon, French (Debussy’s “Clair de…”) |
| 1 | N | Require; verb/noun |
| 1 | N | Small swelling or aggregation of cells in the body, especially an abnormal one |
| 1 | N | In grammar, a person, place or thing |
| 1 | N | (Physics) collective term for protons & neutrons |
| 3 | N | Unclothed (in the…), adj. |
| 1 | N | Having no legal or binding force; invalid |
| 2 | O | Stop, close up, or obstruct an opening, orifice, or passage |
| 1 | O | Unit of weight or liquid measure; 128 in a US gallon & 16 in a pound |
| 1 | U | Japanese noodles |
| 1 | U | Parent’s brother (…Sam) |
| 1 | U | Not fashionable or impressive (think “warm” antonym), adj. |
This site provides clues for a day's New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle. It exists to make it easier for Kevin Davis to take a day off. Most of the clues come from him. There may be some startup problems, but long term I think I can put the clues together with no more than half an hour's work.
The "Bee Roots" approach is to provide explicit clues for root words, not every word. This is similar to what Kevin Davis does, but without information about parts of speech 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.
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
Many thanks to Kevin Davis, whose 4,500-word clue list made this possible.