- Letters: H/ACILOT
- Words: 53
- Points: 219
- 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 | AC | 5 | What a sneeze sounds like |
| 3 | 1 | AL | 5 | Hawaiian greeting |
| 2 | 1 | AL | 7 | Booze, chemically |
| 2 | 1 | AL | 9 | Booze, chemically |
| 4 | 1 | AT | 6 | Fasten 2 things together |
| 5 | 1 | CA | 5 | Intercept & hold (a fish, a thrown ball, e.g.) |
| 6 | 1 | CA | 8 | Covers or holds a variety of things; starts with above; compound noun (…term or tray) |
| 7 | 1 | CA | 8 | Including a wide variety of things, all-embracing (used in the name of the pope's church) |
| 8 | 1 | CH | 4 | Spiced Indian tea (… latte) |
| 11 | 1 | CH | 4 | Informal conversation, noun or verb (online … room, group …) |
| 12 | 1 | CH | 4 | Faddish “pet” mint plant |
| 13 | 1 | CH | 4 | Fashionable |
| 18 | 1 | CH | 4 | IOU note, Navy memo |
| 14 | 1 | CH | 5 | Girl, Spanish |
| 16 | 1 | CH | 5 | Hot pepper, or spicy meat stew (… con carne) |
| 17 | 1 | CH | 5 | Cool (in the fridge), or relax (… out) |
| 15 | 1 | CH | 6 | Pretentious style (or almost 2X fashionable) |
| 9 | 1 | CH | 7 | Jewish Sabbath braided egg bread |
| 10 | 1 | CH | 7 | Complete disorder and confusion |
| 19 | 1 | CH | 8 | Idle small talk; slang compound noun or verb that starts with a list word |
| 20 | 1 | CH | 10 | Person addicted to Hershey or Mars bars |
| 21 | 1 | CL | 5 | Fabric |
| 23 | 1 | CO | 4 | Silver Pacific salmon |
| 22 | 1 | CO | 5 | Athletic instructor or trainer, noun/verb; bus, noun |
| 24 | 1 | HA | 4 | Frozen rain “stone,” noun; or summon a taxi, verb |
| 26 | 1 | HA | 4 | Corridor, or Let’s Make a Deal’s Monty |
| 27 | 1 | HA | 4 | Nimbus (ring of light or glowing cloud) atop a saint, or Xbox shooter game |
| 28 | 1 | HA | 4 | Come to a complete & sudden stop, verb |
| 30 | 1 | HA | 4 | Archaic 3rd person singular present form of "possess" (Hell … no fury) |
| 25 | 1 | HA | 5 | Kosher in Islam |
| 29 | 1 | HA | 5 | Emerge from an egg, verb |
| 31 | 1 | HA | 5 | Yoga type that pairs poses with breathing |
| 32 | 1 | HI | 4 | What Jack & Jill went up |
| 33 | 1 | HI | 4 | Sword or dagger handle |
| 34 | 1 | HI | 5 | “Psycho” director Alfred nickname, or slang for thumb a ride, verb; or device on a vehicle that allows it to attach a trailer, noun |
| 35 | 1 | HO | 4 | Otter den |
| 37 | 1 | HO | 4 | Owl sound |
| 36 | 1 | HO | 5 | Cheap liquor |
| 38 | 1 | IT | 4 | What you scratch (an …) |
| 40 | 1 | LA | 4 | Flat strip of wood, often plastered as wallboard |
| 39 | 1 | LA | 5 | Door, window, or gate fastener, or to close one |
| 41 | 1 | LI | 5 | Print made with a flat surface treated so as to repel the ink except where it is required for printing |
| 45 | 1 | LI | 6 | Small rounded Chinese fruit with sweet white scented flesh, a large central stone, and a thin rough skin (has at least one alternate spelling) |
| 44 | 1 | LO | 4 | Scottish body of water where Nessie lives |
| 42 | 1 | LO | 5 | Fish family that includes the “clown”, or English filmmaker Ken (“I, Daniel Blake”) |
| 43 | 1 | LO | 5 | Reluctant (to), adj.; often confused with verb ending in E meaning “hate” |
| 46 | 1 | OA | 4 | Vow or pledge (you’re under one in court testimony) |
| 47 | 1 | OI | 8 | Fabric treated with linseed on one side to make it waterproof |
| 48 | 1 | TA | 4 | Dashboard engine RPM gauge abbr. |
| 49 | 1 | TH | 4 | Pronoun for the other thing (this & …) |
| 50 | 1 | TH | 6 | Straw roof covering |
| 51 | 1 | TI | 5 | Cultivation of land, or prepped soil surface, noun; rhymes with “extreme dirt” synonym |
| 52 | 1 | TO | 5 | What you chew with |
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.