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 | AO | 5 | Main blood pipe from heart |
| 4 | 1 | AR | 4 | Creative activity: painting, music, literature, dance, etc |
| 2 | 1 | AR | 5 | Buddhist who has achieved nirvana; ends in “cap” synonym |
| 3 | 1 | AR | 9 | West Indian plant that produces starch |
| 5 | 1 | AT | 5 | Flower oil for perfume |
| 33 | 1 | AT | 7 | Prevent from accomplishing something |
| 6 | 1 | HA | 4 | ♂ deer, not ♥ |
| 7 | 1 | HA | 4 | Archaic 3rd person singular present form of "possess" (Hell … no fury) |
| 8 | 1 | HA | 5 | Yoga type that pairs poses with breathing |
| 9 | 1 | HO | 4 | Owl sound |
| 10 | 1 | HO | 9 | Person or thing that strongly encourages an action (usually starts with EX–); obscure adj. |
| 11 | 1 | OA | 4 | Grain that is Quaker's specialty |
| 12 | 1 | OA | 4 | Vow or pledge (you’re under one in court testimony) |
| 13 | 1 | OR | 6 | Make a speech |
| 13 | 1 | OR | 7 | Make a speech |
| 14 | 1 | RA | 5 | Sewer-dwelling rodent |
| 15 | 1 | RA | 7 | Machine gun sound |
| 16 | 1 | RO | 4 | Plant anchor that sucks up water |
| 19 | 1 | RO | 5 | Device or blade that spins |
| 17 | 1 | RO | 6 | Phone with dial, adj., or int’l service org (… Club) |
| 18 | 1 | RO | 7 | Move in a circle around an axis or center |
| 18 | 1 | RO | 8 | Move in a circle around an axis or center |
| 21 | 1 | TA | 4 | Asian veg that sounds like next word |
| 23 | 1 | TA | 4 | Open filled pastry, noun; or sharp taste, adj. |
| 20 | 1 | TA | 5 | Dark, thick, flammable liquid distilled from wood or coal |
| 22 | 1 | TA | 5 | Fortunetelling cards |
| 26 | 1 | TA | 5 | Worn & shabby, or of poor quality; Scottish |
| 24 | 1 | TA | 6 | Fish sauce, or tooth buildup |
| 25 | 1 | TA | 6 | Skin “ink” |
| 27 | 1 | TH | 4 | Pronoun for the other thing (this & …) |
| 29 | 1 | TH | 4 | Unfreeze, with “out” |
| 31 | 1 | TH | 5 | Hurl (a baseball, e.g.) |
| 30 | 1 | TH | 6 | Front of neck, “Deep…” Watergate source |
| 33 | 1 | TH | 6 | Prevent from accomplishing something |
| 30 | 1 | TH | 7 | Front of neck, “Deep…” Watergate source |
| 28 | 1 | TH | 8 | In a certain direction (he went …) |
| 32 | 1 | TH | 9 | Meant to be discarded, adj/noun |
| 34 | 1 | TO | 4 | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
| 37 | 1 | TO | 4 | Bull, Spanish |
| 38 | 1 | TO | 4 | Legal wrong, NOT pastry |
| 35 | 1 | TO | 5 | What you chew with |
| 36 | 1 | TO | 5 | 1st 5 books of Bible in scroll form for Jews |
| 35 | 1 | TO | 6 | What you chew with |
| 39 | 1 | TR | 4 | Use it to carry drinks |
| 40 | 1 | TR | 4 | Fast walking pace for horses or people |
| 42 | 1 | TR | 4 | Helen of “The Iliad” home, or oz. for gold & gems |
| 41 | 1 | TR | 5 | Archaic var. of “honesty”; you pledge your … in marriage vows |
| 43 | 1 | TY | 4 | Newbie, from Latin “recruit” |
| 44 | 1 | WA | 4 | Small, hard benign skin growth (on a witch’s chin?) (…-hog, plantar …) |
| 45 | 1 | WA | 4 | Unit of electric power |
| 44 | 1 | WA | 5 | Small, hard benign skin growth (on a witch’s chin?) (…-hog, plantar …) |
| 46 | 1 | WH | 4 | Interrogative akin to “Pardon? Say again?” |
| 47 | 1 | WO | 4 | Slang exclamation of elation, or Amazon daily deals site |
| 49 | 1 | WO | 4 | Medicinal plant (St. John’s...). or liquid extract from brewing grains |
| 50 | 1 | WO | 5 | Value (net…) |
| 50 | 1 | WO | 6 | Value (net…) |
| 48 | 1 | WO | 9 | Someone who is always anxious (slang, compound) |
| 51 | 1 | WR | 5 | Anger, literary |
| 52 | 1 | WR | 5 | Angry, archaic |
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.