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 | AC | 5 | Nut from an oak tree |
| 4 | 1 | AR | 4 | Musically, “with the bow,” or gas brand |
| 2 | 1 | AR | 5 | Tree garden; its “Day” is April 30 this year |
| 3 | 1 | AR | 6 | 1 of 2 classes in a tarot pack (major & minor), a mystery or deep secret, or specialized knowledge, noun |
| 5 | 1 | BA | 4 | Sharp projection near end of fishhook or on top of wire fence; start of Streisand name |
| 7 | 1 | BA | 4 | Large farm bldg. for storage & livestock |
| 8 | 1 | BA | 5 | Noble rank; Snoopy has aerial dogfights with the “Red …” |
| 6 | 1 | BA | 8 | Mexican BBQ; origin of English word via Texas; starts with 1st 5 letters of “Jeannie” actress Eden name |
| 9 | 1 | BO | 4 | Wild pig |
| 10 | 1 | BO | 4 | Lout, NOT wild pig |
| 11 | 1 | BO | 4 | Existing as a result of birth, adj. (Biden was … in Scranton) |
| 12 | 1 | BO | 5 | Element 5 |
| 13 | 1 | BR | 4 | Grain husk (Raisin…cereal) |
| 14 | 1 | BR | 5 | Wild western horse, or Ford SUV |
| 14 | 1 | BR | 6 | Wild western horse, or Ford SUV |
| 15 | 1 | CA | 4 | Bread starch avoided on many diets, slang abbr. |
| 19 | 1 | CA | 5 | Tree or shrub whose pods are often used to make a chocolate substitute |
| 20 | 1 | CA | 5 | Actress Burnett with a variety show, or a Xmas song |
| 16 | 1 | CA | 6 | Element 6 (…dating) |
| 18 | 1 | CA | 6 | Relating to physical, especially sexual, needs and activities (… knowledge) |
| 17 | 1 | CA | 9 | Roman pasta sauce with pork, eggs, pepper, & cheese (spaghetti …) |
| 25 | 1 | CO | 4 | Veg on a cob |
| 21 | 1 | CO | 5 | Venomous snake |
| 23 | 1 | CO | 5 | Red, green, blue, purple, etc. |
| 24 | 1 | CO | 5 | Reef building marine invertebrates, a deep pink hue, or a sea off Australia |
| 22 | 1 | CO | 6 | Cloth or leather strip a dog or cat wears around its neck |
| 29 | 1 | CO | 6 | Upper part of the sun's atmosphere |
| 30 | 1 | CO | 6 | Animal pen, or “O.K...” gunfight site |
| 27 | 1 | CO | 7 | An ear of maize, compound (… pipe) |
| 28 | 1 | CO | 7 | Small Toyota sedan, or the inner ring of flower petals |
| 29 | 1 | CO | 7 | Upper part of the sun's atmosphere |
| 26 | 1 | CO | 8 | Trite & sentimental, pangram adj.; compound; ends in list word; literally, an orb of maize |
| 31 | 1 | CR | 4 | Crustacean with claws & eye stalks |
| 32 | 1 | CR | 4 | Holey shoe, or alligator relative abbr. |
| 33 | 1 | CR | 5 | Hum or sing in a soft, low voice, especially in a sentimental manner (think Sinatra or Bublé) |
| 34 | 1 | LA | 5 | Hard work (manual…), or UK political party of Tony Blair (they add a U) |
| 35 | 1 | NA | 4 | Drug cop, slang |
| 36 | 1 | NA | 5 | Drug dealer, old-fashioned slang |
| 37 | 1 | OR | 4 | Spoken (...exam), or by mouth (...surgery), adjective |
| 38 | 1 | OR | 4 | Killer “whale” |
| 40 | 1 | RA | 6 | Bitterness or resentfulness, especially when long-standing |
| 39 | 1 | RA | 7 | Mammal with a mask |
| 41 | 1 | RO | 4 | Horse with 2–colored coat |
| 42 | 1 | RO | 4 | Lion “shout” |
| 45 | 1 | RO | 4 | What you do to dice, verb; or Tootsie candy & small bread format, noun |
| 44 | 1 | RO | 6 | Ornamental decorative style |
| 46 | 1 | RO | 7 | Vehicle roof rod to protect against overturning, compound |
| 43 | 1 | RO | 8 | Recorded phone message from an auto dialer, compound |
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.