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. The Halloween, 2021 redesign improved the usability, I hope.
Past clues are available here
Table content
| root # | answers covered | answer's first two letters | answer's length | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | EP | 4 | Fencing sword |
| 2 | 1 | IM | 5 | Drive forward, or force or urge someone to do something, verb |
| 3 | 1 | IM | 9 | Tool, utensil, piece of equipment, noun; put a plan into action, verb |
| 15 | 1 | IM | 10 | Feeling or showing sorrow & regret for having done wrong, adj.; or a person seeking forgiveness for their sins, noun |
| 4 | 1 | IN | 5 | Having or showing no skill; clumsy |
| 5 | 1 | LI | 4 | Walk with a bad leg, verb; or soggy noodle adj. |
| 6 | 1 | LI | 6 | Marine mollusk with a shallow conical shell |
| 8 | 1 | NI | 6 | Teat that babies suck on |
| 7 | 1 | NI | 7 | Bowling variation with 1 target less than standard; compound |
| 9 | 1 | PE | 4 | Skin of a fruit, noun; or to remove it, verb |
| 10 | 1 | PE | 4 | Backside of a hammer |
| 11 | 1 | PE | 4 | Baby bird sound, Easter marshmallow, or a furtive look |
| 13 | 1 | PE | 4 | Bombard (with snowballs), verb; or animal fur, noun |
| 18 | 1 | PE | 4 | Archaic for “repressed,” now used as …-up frustration, adj. |
| 17 | 1 | PE | 5 | Tube pasta, vodka optional |
| 19 | 1 | PE | 5 | The kind of jury that renders verdicts (from French for small) |
| 12 | 1 | PE | 6 | Small, rounded, compressed mass (food, buckshot, rabbit dung) |
| 14 | 1 | PE | 6 | ♂ sex organ |
| 16 | 1 | PE | 6 | Archaic for writers; literally “ink stick” & ♂ plural |
| 20 | 1 | PE | 6 | Small (French) |
| 15 | 1 | PE | 8 | Feeling or showing sorrow & regret for having done wrong, adj.; or a person seeking forgiveness for their sins, noun |
| 21 | 1 | PI | 4 | Heap, stack (dirty laundry, raked leaves, etc.), noun/verb |
| 22 | 1 | PI | 4 | Tablet of medicine |
| 23 | 1 | PI | 4 | ♂ who controls prostitutes |
| 25 | 1 | PI | 4 | Evergreen tree with cones, noun; or to long for, verb |
| 26 | 1 | PI | 4 | 16 fluid oz., or typical UK beer serving |
| 27 | 1 | PI | 4 | Copper or plastic tube that carries water, noun; or to move liquid in one, verb; decorate a cake with icing |
| 29 | 1 | PI | 5 | Slender tube with a bulb, used to transfer or measure small amounts of liquid in a lab; 2 spellings |
| 30 | 1 | PI | 5 | Ground-dwelling bird that wags its tail & is named for its song |
| 24 | 1 | PI | 6 | Zit |
| 31 | 1 | PI | 6 | Fosse musical about Charlemagne’s son, or apple variety |
| 29 | 1 | PI | 7 | Slender tube with a bulb, used to transfer or measure small amounts of liquid in a lab; 2 spellings |
| 28 | 1 | PI | 8 | Tube that transports oil & gas, compound |
| 32 | 1 | PL | 4 | Ballét bénd |
| 34 | 1 | TE | 4 | Office worker fill-in, slang abbr. |
| 33 | 1 | TE | 5 | Native Am conical hut |
| 36 | 1 | TE | 5 | Speed at which a passage of music is played; more generally, pace of an activity |
| 37 | 1 | TE | 5 | Entice (as a donut to a dieter, e.g.), verb |
| 33 | 1 | TE | 6 | Native Am conical hut |
| 35 | 1 | TE | 6 | Building devoted to the worship of one or more deities |
| 38 | 1 | TE | 6 | Bowling with the standard number of targets, compound |
| 39 | 1 | TI | 6 | Pointy ornamental ♂ neckwear-controlling device; clips are more common now; compound |
| 40 | 1 | TI | 6 | Long fur scarf, stole or shawl; or a clerical scarf |
| 41 | 1 | TI | 6 | Drink alcohol, verb; or the drink, slang noun |
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.