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 | African or Australian wattle tree |
| 2 | 1 | A | Trendy smoothie berry |
| 3 | 2 | A | Below 7 on the pH scale (amino …, sulfuric …, hydrochloric …) |
| 4 | 1 | A | Do something |
| 5 | 1 | A | Someone who’s hooked on drugs |
| 6 | 1 | A | Fess up, or let in |
| 7 | 1 | A | Surrounded by, preposition |
| 8 | 1 | A | A supply of bullets, slang abbreviation |
| 9 | 3 | A | Smallest unit of matter, “… Ant” superhero, noun/adjective (… bomb) |
| 10 | 1 | A | Unfinished room below roof; garret |
| 11 | 1 | C | Bean source of Hershey Bars |
| 12 | 1 | C | Succulent plant with a thick stem that usually has spines, lacks leaves, and occasionally has brilliantly colored flowers |
| 13 | 1 | C | ♀ sleeveless undergarment top, slang abbr. |
| 14 | 1 | C | Clothing that helps you hide, slang abbr. |
| 15 | 1 | C | “Hi” or “Bye” in Italian (“… bella”) |
| 16 | 1 | C | Noisy 17–year insect |
| 17 | 1 | C | Outdoor jacket (trench-…) |
| 18 | 1 | C | Central American raccoon |
| 19 | 1 | C | 1st part of popular soda brand name |
| 20 | 1 | C | Hot winter drink with marshmallows, or the powder it’s made from |
| 21 | 1 | C | Concluding event, remark, or section, especially in music |
| 22 | 1 | C | Prolonged unconscious state |
| 23 | 1 | C | Curly punctuation mark that separates phrases |
| 24 | 1 | D | Slang exclamation of frustration (“…Janet” song in “Rocky Horror”); should have an N instead of a doubled central consonant; compound; condemn something to hell |
| 25 | 1 | D | Facts & stats, computer info, or Star Trek Next Gen android |
| 26 | 1 | D | Single-celled alga which has a cell wall of silica |
| 27 | 1 | D | (Usually singular) formal pronouncements, or adages, Latin plural |
| 28 | 2 | D | Person over-inclined to instruct others |
| 29 | 1 | D | Thingamajig, slang; ends in “father” nickname |
| 30 | 1 | I | Slang phrase particular to a language (“raining cats & dogs”), noun |
| 31 | 1 | I | Prayer leader at mosque |
| 32 | 1 | I | 9th Greek letter, I; or extremely small amount |
| 33 | 1 | M | Stone paving material; last name of Brit surveyor John Louden |
| 34 | 1 | M | Nut used in candy from Hawaii |
| 35 | 1 | M | Term of respect for a ♀, or one who runs a brothel; palindrome |
| 36 | 1 | M | 8 of them were milking in a Xmas carol |
| 37 | 1 | M | Permanently injure |
| 38 | 3 | M | ♀ parent, slang |
| 39 | 1 | M | Flaky rock that breaks off in sheets |
| 40 | 1 | M | Water ditch surrounding a castle |
| 41 | 1 | O | Group of 8 |
| 42 | 1 | T | Understood without being stated (… agreement), adj. |
| 43 | 1 | T | Mexican filled tortilla, or “… Bell” restaurant |
| 44 | 1 | T | Diplomacy, sensitivity |
| 45 | 1 | T | Action planned to achieve a specific end (negotiating …) |
| 46 | 1 | T | Japanese & dojo floor mats (畳) |
| 47 | 1 | T | Skin “ink” |
| 48 | 1 | T | Frog cousin |
| 49 | 1 | T | Virtuoso musical piece (Bach’s “...& Fugue in D Minor”) |
| 50 | 1 | T | Ketchup & ragù fruit |
| 51 | 1 | T | ♂ feline, compound that starts with a ♂ name (Selleck, Petty, e.g.) |
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.