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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 1 | AN | 4 | Opposed to (prefix), NOT uncle’s wife nickname |
| 2 | 1 | AN | 6 | Ceremonially smear someone with oil, or designate as a successor |
| 1 | 1 | AN | 9 | Bring to life (cartoons), verb; or living, adj. |
| 27 | 1 | AN | 10 | Write something, for example music, in a specialized system |
| 4 | 1 | AT | 4 | Smallest unit of matter, “… Ant” superhero, noun/adjective (… bomb) |
| 5 | 1 | AT | 6 | Succeed in getting, or reach; verb (… nirvana) |
| 6 | 1 | AT | 7 | Archaic verb meaning to corrupt |
| 7 | 1 | AV | 8 | Pilot or fly in a plane, verb (from Latin for bird) |
| 8 | 1 | IM | 9 | Copy someone’s speech or mannerisms |
| 12 | 1 | IN | 4 | Enter (go … the room), preposition |
| 9 | 1 | IN | 10 | Cause to begin, or admit into a secret society; verb; or novice, noun |
| 10 | 1 | IN | 10 | Introduce or invent new ideas, products, or methods |
| 11 | 1 | IN | 10 | Extremely close & personal (… apparel) |
| 13 | 1 | IN | 10 | Ask someone to a party |
| 41 | 1 | IN | 10 | Character of sound, a sound (dial or ring-); noun; give greater strength or firmness to a body or a muscle; verb |
| 14 | 1 | IO | 4 | 9th Greek letter, I; or extremely small amount |
| 16 | 1 | MA | 5 | Ray (fish) |
| 15 | 1 | MA | 8 | Keep up (appearances), or support; verb |
| 17 | 1 | MI | 4 | Breath candy or its flavor or plant source, noun; or create coins, verb |
| 18 | 1 | MI | 4 | Catcher’s glove, or Sen. Romney |
| 19 | 1 | MO | 4 | Water ditch surrounding a castle |
| 20 | 1 | MO | 4 | Irrelevant, in law (it’s a … point) |
| 23 | 1 | MO | 5 | Short phrase encapsulating beliefs of an institution (Marines’ “Semper Fi”) |
| 21 | 1 | MO | 6 | Action by which things change position, or parliamentary proposal; noun |
| 22 | 1 | MO | 10 | Reason for doing something |
| 24 | 1 | NA | 6 | Swimming or floating adj. from Latin |
| 25 | 1 | NA | 6 | Country, or temperance activist Carrie |
| 28 | 1 | NO | 6 | Vague idea, or small sewing accessory |
| 27 | 1 | NO | 8 | Write something, for example music, in a specialized system |
| 26 | 1 | NO | 10 | Propose a candidate for election or an honor |
| 29 | 1 | OM | 4 | Leave out, verb |
| 30 | 1 | ON | 4 | Preposition when mounting an animal or boarding a large vehicle |
| 31 | 1 | OT | 7 | Turkish Empire; or low, upholstered seat or footstool without a back or arms |
| 32 | 1 | OV | 7 | Loud prolonged applause |
| 33 | 1 | TA | 5 | Smear of corruption or pollution, noun/verb |
| 34 | 1 | TA | 6 | Brown chemical in tea & wine used to preserve leather, noun |
| 35 | 1 | TA | 6 | Japanese & dojo floor mats (畳) |
| 36 | 1 | TA | 6 | Skin “ink” |
| 37 | 1 | TI | 4 | Shade of color, noun; or darken car windows, verb |
| 38 | 1 | TI | 5 | Pre-Olympic god, largest Saturn moon, or industry bigwig |
| 42 | 1 | TO | 4 | Animated film or character, slang abbr. (car-…) |
| 43 | 1 | TO | 4 | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
| 39 | 1 | TO | 6 | Ketchup & ragù fruit |
| 40 | 1 | TO | 6 | New Zealand small bird (Magnum, P.I star 1st name + breast, slang) |
| 44 | 1 | VI | 7 | Nutritional substance such as A & B6, or pill such as Centrum |
| 45 | 1 | VO | 5 | Eject matter from the stomach through the mouth, verb/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.