- Letters: D/EGHITW
- Words: 43
- Points: 197
- 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. An exception:
since Sam won't allow S, when the root contains an S, the clue may be for a plural or suffixed form. "Mice" for example.
If a clue isn't self-explanatory, try googling it.
The TL;DR about the site comes after the table.
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 | DE | 4 | Property ownership paper, noun; or to transfer ownership, verb |
| 1 | 1 | DE | 6 | Property ownership paper, noun; or to transfer ownership, verb |
| 2 | 1 | DI | 4 | Cease to live |
| 3 | 1 | DI | 4 | Limit your food intake, verb/noun |
| 4 | 1 | DI | 5 | Finger, toe, or any numeral from 1–9 |
| 3 | 1 | DI | 6 | Limit your food intake, verb/noun |
| 6 | 1 | ED | 4 | A border or outer boundary, or to provide one; win by a narrow margin |
| 7 | 1 | ED | 4 | Revise text |
| 6 | 1 | ED | 5 | A border or outer boundary, or to provide one; win by a narrow margin |
| 5 | 1 | ED | 6 | Water swirl, NOT clothier Bauer |
| 7 | 1 | ED | 6 | Revise text |
| 8 | 1 | EG | 5 | What baby birds hatch from |
| 9 | 1 | GI | 6 | Live performance by or engagement for a musician or group, especially playing pop or jazz; noun/verb |
| 11 | 1 | HE | 4 | Pay attention to (you didn’t … my advice) |
| 10 | 1 | HE | 5 | Shrub fence, noun; or limit (… your bets) |
| 12 | 1 | HE | 5 | Chop or cut (something, especially wood or coal) with a tool such as an axe |
| 10 | 1 | HE | 6 | Shrub fence, noun; or limit (… your bets) |
| 11 | 1 | HE | 6 | Pay attention to (you didn’t … my advice) |
| 13 | 1 | HI | 4 | Stay out of sight (play “… & seek”) |
| 14 | 1 | HI | 4 | Go quickly (archaic) |
| 15 | 1 | TE | 4 | Short stick that holds up a golf ball |
| 16 | 1 | TE | 7 | When the things you use to chew start to emerge, you chew on everything, and you drool all the time |
| 17 | 1 | TI | 4 | Ocean ebb & flow at the beach, or laundry soap brand |
| 19 | 1 | TI | 4 | Fasten with string or cord, verb/noun |
| 17 | 1 | TI | 5 | Ocean ebb & flow at the beach, or laundry soap brand |
| 18 | 1 | TI | 6 | Neatly arranged, adj.; or neaten up, verb |
| 20 | 1 | TI | 6 | Give 10% of your income to the Church |
| 21 | 1 | TW | 5 | Rough-surfaced woolen cloth, typically of mixed flecked colors, originally produced in Scotland |
| 22 | 1 | TW | 7 | Bird vocalization, or post on a social media platform that Elon Musk no longer wants |
| 25 | 1 | WE | 4 | Unwanted plant, or remove them from garden |
| 24 | 1 | WE | 5 | Piece of wood or metal having one thick end and tapering to a thin edge |
| 23 | 1 | WE | 6 | Marry |
| 24 | 2 | WE | 6 | Piece of wood or metal having one thick end and tapering to a thin edge |
| 25 | 1 | WE | 6 | Unwanted plant, or remove them from garden |
| 28 | 1 | WE | 6 | Opposite of dry, adj./verb |
| 26 | 1 | WE | 7 | Put something on a scale to determine heaviness |
| 27 | 1 | WE | 8 | What the scale reads in lbs or kg, noun (my … has gone up since the lockdown started) |
| 29 | 1 | WH | 7 | Sharpen a blade or appetite |
| 30 | 1 | WI | 4 | Opposite of narrow |
| 32 | 1 | WI | 5 | Side to side measurement, perpendicular to length |
| 31 | 1 | WI | 6 | Small mechanical device, especially one whose name is unknown or unspecified |
| 33 | 1 | WI | 6 | Head covering made of hair |
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.