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 | Friendly relationship (esp. between nations) |
| 2 | 1 | A | Opposed to (prefix), NOT uncle’s wife nickname |
| 3 | 1 | A | Childish or playful tomfoolery, usually plural |
| 4 | 1 | A | Succeed in getting, or reach; verb (… nirvana) |
| 5 | 1 | A | Archaic verb meaning to corrupt |
| 6 | 1 | A | Unfinished room below roof; garret |
| 7 | 1 | C | Succulent plant with a thick stem that usually has spines, lacks leaves, and occasionally has brilliantly colored flowers |
| 8 | 1 | C | Tilt, or “I am unable to do so” contraction; hypocritical and sanctimonious talk |
| 9 | 1 | C | Medium-length narrative music for voice & instruments, from Italian for “sung” |
| 10 | 1 | C | Spanish bar, or the Mos Eisley bar on Tatooine in “Star Wars” |
| 11 | 1 | C | Furry pet that purrs |
| 12 | 1 | C | Alt name for plant that drives felines wild (feline + breath candy); compound |
| 13 | 1 | C | Large town (NY, LA, Chicago, etc.) |
| 14 | 1 | I | Stupid, silly, ridiculous (… questions or comments); adj. |
| 15 | 1 | I | Recite a spell or a prayer; chant or intone, verb, usually occurs in its -ation noun form |
| 16 | 1 | I | Not damaged or impaired in any way; complete (I left with my dignity…), adj. |
| 17 | 1 | I | Extremely close & personal (… apparel) |
| 18 | 1 | I | Really small, slang; usually paired with rhyming B word |
| 19 | 1 | M | Keep up (appearances), or support; verb |
| 20 | 1 | M | Ray (fish) |
| 21 | 2 | M | Breath candy or its flavor or plant source, noun; or create coins, verb |
| 22 | 1 | M | Catcher’s glove, or Sen. Romney |
| 23 | 1 | N | Swimming or floating adj. from Latin |
| 24 | 1 | N | Well dressed, adj. |
| 25 | 1 | T | Understood without being stated (… agreement), adj. |
| 26 | 1 | T | Diplomacy, sensitivity |
| 27 | 2 | T | Action planned to achieve a specific end (negotiating …) |
| 28 | 1 | T | Smear of corruption or pollution, noun/verb |
| 29 | 2 | T | Brown chemical in tea & wine used to preserve leather, noun |
| 30 | 1 | T | Japanese & dojo floor mats (畳) |
| 31 | 1 | T | Worn & shabby, or of poor quality; Scottish |
| 32 | 1 | T | Silvery-white metal, atomic number 50 (Cat on a Hot … Roof) |
| 33 | 1 | T | Archaic for shade of color, seen now only in “–URE of iodine” |
| 34 | 1 | T | Shade of color, noun; or darken car windows, verb |
| 35 | 1 | T | Very small, adj., “Christmas Carol” kid |
| 36 | 2 | T | Pre-Olympic god, largest Saturn moon, or industry bigwig |
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.