- Letters: U/ALNRTY
- Words: 44
- Points: 214
- 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. 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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | AN | 5 | Void a marriage |
| 1 | 1 | AN | 6 | Yearly, adj. |
| 3 | 1 | AN | 7 | Ring-shaped object, structure, or region |
| 1 | 1 | AN | 8 | Yearly, adj. |
| 3 | 1 | AN | 9 | Ring-shaped object, structure, or region |
| 4 | 1 | AU | 4 | Parent’s sister |
| 5 | 1 | AU | 4 | Supernatural glow encircling a person |
| 4 | 1 | AU | 5 | Parent’s sister |
| 6 | 1 | AU | 5 | Hearing-related adj. |
| 6 | 1 | AU | 7 | Hearing-related adj. |
| 7 | 1 | LU | 4 | Hawaiian BBQ |
| 8 | 1 | LU | 4 | Soothe (… into a false sense of security), verb; or a pause in activity, noun |
| 9 | 1 | LU | 4 | Doozy, or “To Sir With Love” singer |
| 10 | 1 | LU | 4 | Roman moon goddess, or nutrition bar brand |
| 11 | 1 | LU | 5 | Moon adj. (… eclipse) |
| 12 | 1 | LU | 6 | ½–moon shaped fingertip base white area (Latin "little moon") |
| 13 | 1 | NA | 7 | Not made or caused by humankind; or having an innate gift or talent; or (music) neither sharp nor flat |
| 13 | 1 | NA | 9 | Not made or caused by humankind; or having an innate gift or talent; or (music) neither sharp nor flat |
| 14 | 1 | NU | 4 | Having no legal or binding force; invalid |
| 15 | 1 | NU | 5 | Fruit consisting of a hard or tough shell around an edible kernel |
| 18 | 1 | RU | 4 | Smallest of the litter |
| 17 | 1 | RU | 5 | Move fast on foot |
| 18 | 1 | RU | 5 | Smallest of the litter |
| 19 | 1 | RU | 5 | Countryside adj.; opposite of urban |
| 20 | 1 | RU | 5 | Long deep track made by the repeated passage of the wheels of vehicles |
| 19 | 1 | RU | 7 | Countryside adj.; opposite of urban |
| 23 | 1 | TA | 4 | Not slack, as a rope, adj. |
| 22 | 1 | TA | 5 | Provoke with words |
| 23 | 1 | TA | 6 | Not slack, as a rope, adj. |
| 21 | 1 | TA | 9 | Large hairy spider |
| 25 | 1 | TR | 5 | Not false |
| 24 | 1 | TR | 6 | School-skipper |
| 26 | 1 | TU | 4 | Chicken of the sea (Ahi …) |
| 27 | 1 | TU | 4 | Change direction , verb (use your … signal when driving!) |
| 28 | 1 | TU | 4 | Ballet skirt, or S Afr Bishop Desmond |
| 29 | 1 | UL | 4 | Forearm bone opposite radius |
| 29 | 1 | UL | 5 | Forearm bone opposite radius |
| 30 | 1 | UL | 5 | “Extreme” or “beyond” prefix, as in –violet, or “Ne plus…” |
| 16 | 1 | UN | 6 | Regulation or principal, noun; exercise power, verb |
| 25 | 1 | UN | 7 | Not false |
| 13 | 1 | UN | 9 | Not made or caused by humankind; or having an innate gift or talent; or (music) neither sharp nor flat |
| 13 | 1 | UN | 11 | Not made or caused by humankind; or having an innate gift or talent; or (music) neither sharp nor flat |
| 31 | 1 | YU | 4 | ¥ (Chinese money) |
| 32 | 1 | YU | 4 | Circular tent of felt or skins |
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.