- Letters: C/ADFIRT
- Words: 35
- Points: 194
- Pangrams: 1
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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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | AC | 4 | Trendy smoothie berry |
| 3 | 1 | AC | 4 | Below 7 on the pH scale (amino …, sulfuric …, hydrochloric …) |
| 4 | 1 | AC | 5 | Strong & unpleasant taste or smell, adj. |
| 1 | 1 | AC | 6 | African or Australian wattle tree |
| 3 | 1 | AC | 6 | Below 7 on the pH scale (amino …, sulfuric …, hydrochloric …) |
| 5 | 1 | AD | 6 | Someone who’s hooked on drugs |
| 6 | 1 | AI | 8 | Machine that flies |
| 8 | 1 | AR | 6 | North Pole adj. (… Circle or Ocean) |
| 7 | 1 | AR | 7 | Region or scene of simple pleasure or quiet, city near LA, or mountainous southern region of Greece |
| 9 | 1 | AR | 8 | Something made by a person, often of historical interest |
| 10 | 1 | AT | 5 | Unfinished room below roof; garret |
| 11 | 1 | AT | 7 | Entice, lure, or evoke (…attention; opposites…), verb |
| 14 | 1 | CA | 4 | Thing used to play poker & bridge, noun; or ask for ID as proof of age before entry |
| 16 | 1 | CA | 4 | Shopping trolley you push |
| 12 | 1 | CA | 5 | Succulent plant with a thick stem that usually has spines, lacks leaves, and occasionally has brilliantly colored flowers |
| 13 | 1 | CA | 5 | Unit of weight for gems, NOT bunny food |
| 15 | 1 | CA | 7 | Heart, medical adj. (… arrest) |
| 17 | 1 | CA | 8 | Eye cloudiness, or waterfall |
| 19 | 1 | CI | 5 | “Around” when used before a year, Latin |
| 20 | 1 | CI | 5 | Cloud forming wispy streaks (“mare's tails”) at high altitude |
| 18 | 1 | CI | 6 | Noisy 17–year insect |
| 21 | 1 | CI | 6 | Tree genus that includes lemon, lime, orange, and grapefruit, or the fruit of those trees |
| 22 | 1 | CR | 5 | “Arts & …s” movement or class |
| 23 | 1 | CR | 6 | Fault-finder (“everyone’s a…”), or arts & dining reviewer |
| 25 | 1 | DI | 5 | (Usually singular) formal pronouncements, or adages, Latin plural |
| 26 | 1 | DI | 6 | Person over-inclined to instruct others |
| 26 | 1 | DI | 8 | Person over-inclined to instruct others |
| 27 | 1 | DI | 8 | Bend waves around the corners of an obstacle |
| 24 | 1 | DI | 9 | Accent or other pronunciation mark on a letter, NOT a fault-finder |
| 28 | 1 | FA | 4 | Thing that is known (for a …) |
| 30 | 1 | TA | 4 | Diplomacy, sensitivity |
| 29 | 1 | TA | 5 | Understood without being stated (… agreement), adj. |
| 31 | 1 | TA | 6 | Action planned to achieve a specific end (negotiating …) |
| 32 | 1 | TR | 5 | Large land area, or body passage (“digestive …”) |
| 33 | 1 | TR | 7 | Flow of cars and trucks (there's heavy … in the city today) |
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.