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
| clue # | words covered | root 1st letter | clue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | A | Decorate (...with) (Xmas tree, e.g.) |
| 2 | 1 | A | Stuck on the ground under shallow water (a huge container ship ran ... in the Suez Canal) |
| 3 | 1 | A | Long-haired rabbit or goat, or fabric from its hair (...sweater) |
| 4 | 1 | A | Soon, poetically |
| 5 | 1 | A | Atomic no. 18, abundant gas in Earth atmosphere |
| 6 | 1 | A | Nearby (it's…here somewhere, just…the corner) adj.; or encircling, preposition |
| 7 | 1 | D | Mild cuss (just get the…thing working!); euphemism for “condemn to Hell” expletive |
| 8 | 1 | D | Milder form of above exclamation; or mend holes in socks, verb |
| 9 | 1 | D | Perform an action, achieve or complete something; hairstyle (American slang); social event (British slang) |
| 10 | 1 | D | ₫ (Vietnam $), or 2nd ½ of doorbell sound |
| 11 | 1 | D | Someone who gives (blood, organs, $) |
| 12 | 1 | D | Flying fire-breather (Smaug) |
| 13 | 1 | D | Cavalry officer, noun; or coerce, verb |
| 14 | 1 | D | Aquatic mammal with a forked tail that lives on the coasts of the Indian Ocean |
| 15 | 1 | D | Animal manure |
| 16 | 1 | D | Shoulder-shrug non-response to a question; “I have no idea”; slang |
| 17 | 1 | G | Group of thugs ("Working on the Chain..."), noun/verb |
| 18 | 1 | G | Gland that produces sperm or eggs |
| 19 | 1 | G | Orchestra chime or dinner bell |
| 20 | 1 | G | Intend to do, slang contraction |
| 21 | 1 | G | Thug, noun |
| 22 | 1 | G | 3 Greek sisters with snakes for hair & petrifying gazes |
| 23 | 1 | G | Parent’s mom, slang abbr. |
| 24 | 1 | G | Magnificent or imposing in appearance, size, or style, adj.; a thousand $, slang |
| 25 | 2 | G | Your parent's father (familiar) |
| 26 | 1 | G | Make an unhappy sound, or respond to a lame joke |
| 27 | 2 | G | The solid surface of the earth, noun; prohibit from flying, verb |
| 28 | 1 | G | Bat droppings |
| 29 | 1 | N | Indiaan flaat breaad |
| 30 | 1 | N | Nothing, Spanish |
| 31 | 1 | N | Grandma, slang; or Peter Pan dog |
| 32 | 1 | N | 9–sided shape |
| 33 | 1 | N | 12:00, midday, 🕛 |
| 34 | 1 | N | In grammar, a person, place or thing |
| 35 | 1 | O | Red-haired ape, slang abbr. |
| 36 | 1 | O | Keyboard instrument with pipes (church…) |
| 37 | 1 | R | Harmful gas that seeps into homes; atomic no. 86 |
| 38 | 1 | R | Kirk’s Yeoman Janice on Star Trek, or South African $ |
| 39 | 2 | R | Make a bell sound, verb/noun; encircle, verb/noun |
| 40 | 1 | R | Horse with 2–colored coat |
| 41 | 1 | R | Musical form with recurring theme, often final movement of a piece, from Italian |
| 42 | 1 | R | Circular, adj. |
| 43 | 1 | R | Evasive treatment (“they gave me the...”), compound (lit., jog in a circle) |
| 44 | 1 | U | Japanese noodles |
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.