- Letters: T/EJMNOY
- Words: 39
- Points: 162
- 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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | EM | 5 | Ham it up as an actor |
| 3 | 1 | EN | 7 | Friendly understanding between countries, French |
| 2 | 1 | EN | 9 | Take pleasure in something |
| 4 | 1 | JE | 4 | Ballet jump (French) |
| 5 | 1 | JE | 5 | Small pier or breakwater |
| 6 | 1 | ME | 4 | Encounter (I’m supposed to … him in the park) |
| 9 | 1 | ME | 4 | Dispense justice (“… out punishment”), homophone of “animal flesh for consumption” |
| 8 | 1 | ME | 6 | Person who is trained by a guide (–EE suffix) |
| 7 | 1 | ME | 7 | Souvenir in English; or 2000 thriller about an amnesiac (Guy Pearce) |
| 10 | 1 | ME | 7 | Figure of speech in which the name of an object or concept is replaced with closely related word (Washington has problems passing legislation) |
| 10 | 1 | ME | 8 | Figure of speech in which the name of an object or concept is replaced with closely related word (Washington has problems passing legislation) |
| 14 | 1 | MO | 4 | Irrelevant, in law (it’s a … point) |
| 15 | 1 | MO | 4 | Speck of dust |
| 13 | 1 | MO | 5 | 3–card… con game |
| 16 | 1 | MO | 5 | Short piece of sacred choral music, typically polyphonic & unaccompanied |
| 17 | 1 | MO | 5 | Short phrase encapsulating beliefs of an institution (Marines’ “Semper Fi”) |
| 11 | 1 | MO | 6 | Very brief period of time (“I’ll be with you in just a…”) |
| 12 | 2 | MO | 8 | Sound that is unchanging in pitch (“She spoke in a…that put me to sleep”); compound that ends in list word |
| 18 | 1 | NE | 5 | UK outhouse, slang; or butterfly & fish mesh catcher adj. |
| 20 | 1 | NO | 4 | What you pass to someone in class, or ♪ in music |
| 19 | 1 | NO | 5 | Group of 9 (musicians) |
| 21 | 1 | ON | 4 | Preposition when mounting an animal or boarding a large vehicle |
| 22 | 1 | TE | 4 | Be full or swarming with; homophone of Yankees group |
| 23 | 1 | TE | 4 | Adolescent (...-ager), or numbers 13–19 |
| 28 | 1 | TE | 4 | Shelter you sleep in while camping |
| 24 | 1 | TE | 5 | Minuscule, or trendy youth (…-bopper) |
| 26 | 1 | TE | 5 | Recent Christopher Nolan time-travel film, or a principle or belief |
| 27 | 1 | TE | 5 | Projecting piece of wood attached to a mortise |
| 25 | 1 | TE | 8 | Set of rooms within a house, or cheap multi-family bldg. |
| 29 | 1 | TO | 4 | Large, heavy book |
| 30 | 1 | TO | 4 | Character of sound, a sound (dial or ring-); noun; give greater strength or firmness to a body or a muscle; verb |
| 32 | 1 | TO | 4 | Broadway award, or Maj. Nelson on "Jeannie" |
| 33 | 1 | TO | 4 | Animated film or character, slang abbr. (car-…) |
| 34 | 1 | TO | 4 | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
| 35 | 1 | TO | 4 | Reusable bag, noun; or schlep, verb |
| 31 | 1 | TO | 5 | 1,000 kilograms, UK spelling; double the last consonant in above |
| 36 | 1 | TO | 5 | Symbolic object (…pole) |
| 37 | 1 | YE | 5 | Matchmaker or gossip, Yiddish |
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.