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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 1 | AB | 4 | Be next to; share a common border |
| 1 | 1 | AB | 5 | Head monk, perhaps at Downton |
| 3 | 1 | AB | 5 | Call off (a mission or takeoff, e.g.) |
| 4 | 1 | AB | 5 | Regarding, preposition |
| 2 | 1 | AB | 6 | Train conductor cry: “All …!” (“Get on now!”) |
| 5 | 1 | AB | 6 | Overseas (go …) |
| 7 | 1 | AD | 5 | Filipino stew or Mexican seasoning |
| 8 | 1 | AO | 5 | Main blood pipe from heart |
| 9 | 1 | AR | 5 | Tree garden; its “Day” is April 30 this year |
| 10 | 1 | AR | 5 | Passion (Latin “to burn”) |
| 11 | 1 | AT | 5 | Flower oil for perfume |
| 12 | 1 | AU | 4 | Supernatural glow encircling a person |
| 14 | 1 | AU | 4 | Car, abbr., or “self” prefix |
| 13 | 1 | AU | 6 | Polar lights (… Borealis) |
| 15 | 1 | BA | 4 | Rum sponge cake, or Ali & his 40 thieves |
| 17 | 1 | BA | 4 | Sharp projection near end of fishhook or on top of wire fence; start of Streisand name |
| 18 | 1 | BA | 4 | Archaic term for “poet”; Shakespeare’s “… of Avon” nickname |
| 19 | 1 | BA | 4 | Unit of data modulation speed, once commonly used for dial-up connections |
| 16 | 1 | BA | 6 | African tree |
| 20 | 1 | BO | 4 | Wild pig |
| 22 | 1 | BO | 4 | Small ship, as in “tug-” |
| 23 | 1 | BO | 4 | Taiwan sweet tea with gelatin pearls |
| 21 | 1 | BO | 5 | Plank of wood, noun; or get on a vehicle, verb |
| 24 | 1 | BR | 4 | Small nail, or Janet's hubby in “Rocky Horror” |
| 25 | 1 | BR | 4 | Badly behaved child; or a type of sausage (…wurst) |
| 26 | 1 | BR | 5 | Wide, or slang term for ♀, adj. + adv. |
| 27 | 1 | BU | 5 | Southern good ole boy |
| 28 | 1 | BU | 7 | Cheese made from mozzarella and cream |
| 29 | 1 | DA | 4 | Spike thrown at a board |
| 31 | 1 | DA | 4 | Facts & stats, computer info, or Star Trek Next Gen android |
| 32 | 1 | DA | 4 | Coat, smear, verb (mud …er wasp) |
| 30 | 1 | DA | 9 | Target for small pointy missiles thrown in bars or basements |
| 33 | 1 | DO | 6 | Thingamajig, slang; ends in “father” nickname |
| 34 | 1 | DO | 6 | “Old & feeble” insult used by N Korea about our former pres. |
| 35 | 1 | DR | 4 | Dull, lacking brightness or interest, adj. |
| 36 | 1 | DR | 4 | Mild exclamation of annoyance used by cartoon villains, anagram of spike thrown at board |
| 37 | 1 | OR | 6 | Make a speech |
| 38 | 1 | OU | 8 | Toward the outside of a boat, ship, or aircraft, adv. (… motor) |
| 39 | 1 | RA | 5 | Nickname of Cpl. O’Reilly in M.A.S.H., or Doppler weather sensor acronym |
| 40 | 1 | RA | 7 | Machine gun sound |
| 41 | 1 | RO | 4 | Street ("Abbey …"), or “rocky …” ice cream flavor |
| 42 | 1 | RO | 4 | Lion “shout” |
| 43 | 1 | RO | 7 | Move in a circle around an axis or center |
| 47 | 1 | TA | 4 | Asian veg that sounds like next word |
| 49 | 1 | TA | 4 | Open filled pastry, noun; or sharp taste, adj. |
| 52 | 1 | TA | 4 | Not slack, as a rope, adj. |
| 45 | 1 | TA | 5 | Forbidden, cultural no-no |
| 46 | 1 | TA | 5 | Small drum used to accompany a pipe or fife played by the same person |
| 48 | 1 | TA | 5 | Fortunetelling cards |
| 44 | 1 | TA | 6 | Sleeveless jerkin consisting only of front and back pieces with a hole for the head |
| 50 | 1 | TA | 6 | Fish sauce, or tooth buildup |
| 51 | 1 | TA | 6 | Skin “ink” |
| 53 | 1 | TO | 4 | Frog cousin |
| 54 | 1 | TR | 10 | French medieval lyric poet |
| 55 | 1 | TU | 4 | Biggest brass instrument; Sousaphone |
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.