- Letters: D/AGINPR
- Words: 55
- Points: 294
- 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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | AD | 6 | Join something to something else |
| 2 | 1 | AI | 6 | Help |
| 3 | 1 | AR | 4 | Dry (climate or land), adj. |
| 4 | 1 | DA | 4 | Mild cuss (just get the … thing working!); euphemism for “condemn to Hell” expletive |
| 7 | 1 | DA | 4 | Milder form of above exclamation; or mend holes in socks, verb |
| 6 | 1 | DA | 6 | Have the courage to do something risky; or challenge someone to do something risky, verb/noun |
| 5 | 1 | DA | 7 | Fish by letting the fly bob lightly on the water |
| 7 | 1 | DA | 7 | Milder form of above exclamation; or mend holes in socks, verb |
| 11 | 1 | DI | 4 | Dent (a … on the car door), or 1st ½ of doorbell sound |
| 9 | 1 | DI | 5 | Arab $, not supper |
| 10 | 1 | DI | 6 | Eat at a restaurant |
| 8 | 1 | DI | 7 | Make a hole in the ground; enjoy (slang) |
| 11 | 1 | DI | 7 | Dent (a … on the car door), or 1st ½ of doorbell sound |
| 12 | 1 | DI | 7 | Put something down quickly into liquid, verb; or brief swim, noun |
| 13 | 1 | DR | 4 | Pull roughly, or pass time slowly & tediously, verb + adj. |
| 16 | 1 | DR | 4 | Let liquid fall, as a leaky faucet or melting ice cream cone, verb/noun |
| 14 | 1 | DR | 5 | What sink water goes down |
| 15 | 1 | DR | 7 | Arrange cloth loosely around something, verb; or long curtain, noun |
| 13 | 1 | DR | 8 | Pull roughly, or pass time slowly & tediously, verb + adj. |
| 14 | 1 | DR | 8 | What sink water goes down |
| 16 | 1 | DR | 8 | Let liquid fall, as a leaky faucet or melting ice cream cone, verb/noun |
| 17 | 1 | GA | 7 | go around from one place to another, in the pursuit of pleasure or entertainment |
| 18 | 1 | GI | 4 | Encircle with a belt |
| 18 | 1 | GI | 7 | Encircle with a belt |
| 19 | 1 | GR | 4 | Alumnus, abbr. |
| 23 | 1 | GR | 4 | Network of lines that cross each other to form a series of squares or rectangles (@the…kid) |
| 21 | 1 | GR | 5 | Magnificent or imposing in appearance, size, or style, adj.; a thousand $, slang |
| 24 | 1 | GR | 5 | Crush something into fine particles or powder, verb; or long, hard work, noun (the daily …) |
| 20 | 1 | GR | 7 | Level of rank, quality, proficiency, intensity, or value; or a mark summarizing a student's performance, noun/verb |
| 22 | 2 | GR | 7 | Your parent's father (familiar) |
| 22 | 1 | GR | 8 | Your parent's father (familiar) |
| 24 | 1 | GR | 8 | Crush something into fine particles or powder, verb; or long, hard work, noun (the daily …) |
| 22 | 1 | GR | 9 | Your parent's father (familiar) |
| 25 | 1 | NA | 4 | Nothing, Spanish |
| 26 | 1 | NA | 5 | Lowest point, rock-bottom, depths; or below the observer in astronomy |
| 27 | 1 | NA | 5 | Greek water nymph, or dragonfly larva |
| 31 | 1 | PA | 4 | Give $ in exchange for goods or services, verb/noun |
| 29 | 1 | PA | 5 | Chinese bamboo-eating bear |
| 28 | 1 | PA | 7 | Thick piece of soft material used to cushion something, noun/verb |
| 30 | 1 | PA | 8 | What the 76 trombones led, noun/verb (4th of July …, Macy' Thanksgiving Day …) |
| 32 | 1 | PI | 6 | Grammatically simplified form of a language, NOT an urban avian pest, noun |
| 33 | 1 | PR | 7 | Deep pleasure or satisfaction as a result of your own achievements, or those of someone close to you, noun/verb; or group of lions |
| 37 | 1 | RA | 4 | Sudden attack, as in “air” or police;” or insect spray |
| 38 | 1 | RA | 4 | Kirk’s Yeoman Janice on Star Trek, or South African $ |
| 34 | 1 | RA | 5 | Nickname of Cpl. O’Reilly in M.A.S.H., or Doppler weather sensor acronym |
| 36 | 1 | RA | 5 | Distance from a point on a circle to the center |
| 39 | 1 | RA | 5 | Swift, as in “transit,” adj., or river whitewater (plural) |
| 35 | 1 | RA | 6 | Unit of angular measure of a ○ |
| 37 | 1 | RA | 7 | Sudden attack, as in “air” or police;” or insect spray |
| 44 | 1 | RI | 4 | Tough outer skin of certain fruit, especially citrus |
| 43 | 1 | RI | 5 | Not flexible |
| 41 | 1 | RI | 6 | Sit on and control the movement of an animal, especially a horse; or travel in a car driven by someone else, verb |
| 40 | 1 | RI | 7 | Make free of something unwanted or troublesome (get … of that spoiled food) |
| 42 | 1 | RI | 7 | Long narrow hilltop, noun; or form into narrow raised bands, verb |
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.