- Letters: C/AMNORY
- Words: 50
- Points: 255
- Pangrams: 2
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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 |
Today's puzzle
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Table content
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| 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 |
| 2 | 1 | AC | 7 | Abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word |
| 4 | 1 | AR | 4 | Musically, “with the bow,” or gas brand |
| 3 | 1 | AR | 6 | 1 of 2 classes in a tarot pack (major & minor), a mystery or deep secret, or specialized knowledge, noun |
| 7 | 1 | CA | 4 | Clothing that helps you hide, slang abbr. |
| 5 | 1 | CA | 5 | Bean source of Hershey Bars |
| 10 | 1 | CA | 5 | Tropical “lily” |
| 12 | 1 | CA | 5 | Shrewd; or soup tin adj. |
| 13 | 1 | CA | 5 | Nikon rival, or accepted (Church) lore, noun |
| 15 | 1 | CA | 5 | Person who works in a traveling amusement (slang) |
| 16 | 1 | CA | 5 | Bounce off or glance off an object or cushion |
| 17 | 1 | CA | 5 | Lug around (fireman’s …), verb |
| 6 | 1 | CA | 6 | Alligator with name similar to British Caribbean islands (George Town) (alt spelling is the same) |
| 8 | 1 | CA | 6 | Small bird, popular as a pet, once used as a monitor for poison gas (... in a coal mine) |
| 9 | 1 | CA | 6 | Leggy French dance |
| 11 | 1 | CA | 6 | Wheeled artillery |
| 14 | 1 | CA | 6 | Deep gorge, from Spanish (“Grand”) |
| 18 | 1 | CO | 4 | 1st part of popular soda brand name |
| 21 | 1 | CO | 4 | Prolonged unconscious state |
| 24 | 1 | CO | 4 | Veg on a cob |
| 19 | 1 | CO | 5 | Hot winter drink with marshmallows, or the powder it’s made from |
| 22 | 1 | CO | 5 | Curly punctuation mark that separates phrases |
| 25 | 1 | CO | 5 | Trite and mawkish |
| 20 | 1 | CO | 6 | Nest for butterfly larva, noun; or wrap up like one, verb |
| 23 | 1 | CO | 6 | Ordinary, or shared (in …), adj. |
| 26 | 1 | CO | 6 | Upper part of the sun's atmosphere |
| 27 | 1 | CO | 8 | Artery that supplies the heart muscle, adj; or heart attack (informal) |
| 28 | 1 | CR | 4 | Study intensely just before a test (stuff facts into your brain), or stuff into a box; verb |
| 31 | 1 | CR | 4 | Holey shoe, or alligator relative abbr. |
| 32 | 1 | CR | 5 | Close friend or companion (often derogatory) |
| 33 | 1 | CR | 5 | Hum or sing in a soft, low voice, especially in a sentimental manner (think Sinatra or Bublé) |
| 29 | 1 | CR | 6 | Small, narrow space or opening |
| 30 | 1 | CR | 6 | What kids use on coloring books |
| 34 | 1 | CY | 4 | Greenish-blue (ink cartridge) |
| 37 | 1 | MA | 5 | Opposite of micro |
| 38 | 1 | MA | 6 | Printed mark that indicates a long vowel; or president of France |
| 39 | 1 | MA | 6 | Rattle shaken in music |
| 35 | 1 | MA | 7 | French sandwich cookie |
| 36 | 1 | MA | 8 | Small cake or biscuit, typically made from ground almonds, coconut or other nuts |
| 41 | 1 | MO | 7 | Casablanca’s country |
| 40 | 1 | MO | 9 | Opposite of democracy; government by one person |
| 42 | 1 | NA | 4 | Drug cop, slang |
| 43 | 1 | NA | 5 | Drug dealer, old-fashioned slang |
| 44 | 1 | NO | 6 | Military slang abbr. for a senior enlisted person (sgt., e.g.) expressed as a negation |
| 45 | 1 | OR | 4 | Killer “whale” |
| 47 | 1 | RA | 4 | Lively, entertaining, & mildly sexual; adj. (think car or horse speed contest) |
| 48 | 1 | RA | 6 | Bitterness or resentfulness, especially when long-standing |
| 46 | 1 | RA | 7 | Mammal with a mask |
| 49 | 1 | RO | 6 | Ornamental decorative style |
| 50 | 1 | RO | 6 | Amorous & funny film genre, slang abbr. |
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.