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 | Garlic mayonnaise, from French for garlic |
| 2 | 1 | A | Heavy block for metalworking |
| 3 | 1 | A | Bee-related adj. |
| 4 | 1 | A | Make use of (…yourself of), or use (to no…) |
| 5 | 1 | A | Bird-related adj. (...Flu, e.g.) |
| 6 | 1 | I | Atom or molecule with a net electric charge |
| 7 | 1 | L | Hawaiian island or porch |
| 8 | 1 | L | Sheep (wool) oil, used as skin moisturizer |
| 9 | 1 | L | Put something down |
| 10 | 1 | L | Roaring “...King” animal that travels in a pride |
| 11 | 1 | L | Fat-sucking procedure, abbr. |
| 12 | 1 | L | Sex organ region of body (fruit of my…s); anagram of “…King” animal |
| 13 | 1 | L | Sucking candy on a stick |
| 14 | 1 | N | Spike that’s hammered, noun/verb |
| 15 | 1 | N | 1 followed 30 zeroes; Latin 9 prefix |
| 16 | 1 | O | Mixture, or spicy Spanish stew, NOT margarine |
| 17 | 1 | O | Veg that makes you cry when cut |
| 18 | 1 | O | Belief or judgment (“In my humble…) |
| 19 | 1 | P | Bucket, NOT white-faced |
| 20 | 1 | P | Sensation from an injury, noun/verb |
| 21 | 1 | P | Toasted Italian sandwich |
| 22 | 1 | P | Small rounded bump on body part such as tongue (from Latin, and/or plural in some puzzles) |
| 23 | 1 | P | Spaniel with butterfly ears |
| 24 | 1 | P | Decorative building used as a shelter in a park |
| 25 | 1 | P | Liberace’s instrument |
| 26 | 1 | P | Instrument with 88 keys played by a roll of punched paper |
| 27 | 1 | P | Tablet of medicine |
| 28 | 1 | P | Passenger seat behind rider on motorcycle or horse; starts with above |
| 29 | 1 | P | Part of bird wing, or small gear engaging with large one (as in “rack &...” steering) |
| 30 | 1 | P | Fosse musical about Charlemagne’s son, or apple variety |
| 31 | 1 | P | Ordinary, unadorned, NOT a 747; adj. |
| 32 | 1 | P | Disease that put FDR in a wheelchair |
| 33 | 1 | P | Plain-woven fabric, typically a lightweight cotton, with a corded surface |
| 34 | 1 | V | Conceited (Carly Simon “You’re So…”) |
| 35 | 2 | V | Flavor from beans of white (plain…) ice cream + chemical compound of that flavor, C₈H₈O₃ |
| 36 | 1 | V | Small glass container (…of poison), NOT despicable |
| 37 | 1 | V | Large & luxurious country house (Roman…) |
| 38 | 1 | V | Bad guy in a story (starts with above) |
| 39 | 1 | V | 6–stringed upright Renaissance fiddle |
| 40 | 1 | V | Modern fiddle smaller than cello, cross-dressing twin lead of “Twelfth Night,” or actress Davis |
| 41 | 1 | V | Itzhak Perlman’s fiddle |
| 42 | 1 | V | French exclamation (et…) “here it is!” |
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.