- Letters: B/ELINTU
- Words: 46
- Points: 216
- 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 | BE | 4 | Past participle of “to exist” (“How have you … doing?”) |
| 3 | 1 | BE | 4 | Borscht veg |
| 5 | 1 | BE | 4 | It rings |
| 7 | 1 | BE | 4 | It holds your pants up |
| 9 | 1 | BE | 4 | Shape into a curve, or Oregon city |
| 6 | 1 | BE | 5 | Southern pretty ♀ (Scarlett O'Hara, e.g.) |
| 10 | 1 | BE | 5 | Nut that Bloody Mary chews in “South Pacific”; AKA areca nut |
| 31 | 1 | BE | 5 | Be in a horizontal resting position, or say something false |
| 4 | 1 | BE | 6 | VW compact car, or winged insect (scarab, e.g.) |
| 1 | 1 | BE | 7 | Straight, direct course between 2 points, compound (think this puzzle’s name) |
| 8 | 1 | BE | 8 | Imaginary band around waist, or railway or road around a city, compound |
| 32 | 1 | BE | 8 | Small (Stuart or Chicken …), adj. |
| 12 | 1 | BI | 4 | Liver secretion, or anger |
| 13 | 1 | BI | 4 | Invoice, or actor Murray |
| 15 | 1 | BI | 4 | Use teeth to cut into food (take a … out of the apple) |
| 11 | 1 | BI | 5 | Holy book (starts with Genesis) |
| 14 | 1 | BI | 6 | Temp soldier lodging |
| 15 | 1 | BI | 6 | Use teeth to cut into food (take a … out of the apple) |
| 16 | 1 | BL | 4 | Russian pancake |
| 17 | 1 | BL | 4 | Primary color, neither red nor green |
| 16 | 1 | BL | 5 | Russian pancake |
| 19 | 1 | BL | 5 | (Of a knife) not sharp, or (of talk) frank; adj. or hollowed-out cigar filled with pot, noun |
| 18 | 1 | BL | 8 | Flower shaped like something that rings, in the primary color that isn't red or green (compound) |
| 22 | 1 | BU | 4 | Light-producing globe, head of garlic, or what you plant to get a tulip |
| 23 | 1 | BU | 4 | ♂ cow |
| 26 | 1 | BU | 4 | Tap a baseball instead of swinging |
| 27 | 1 | BU | 4 | Hit with head or horns (… heads with), verb; or slang abbr. for your rump, noun |
| 21 | 1 | BU | 5 | Erect or assemble, verb; past tense is slang adj. for muscular |
| 28 | 1 | BU | 5 | Isolated hill with steep sides & flat top |
| 20 | 1 | BU | 6 | Thin sphere of liquid enclosing air or another gas (the kids loved blowing soap …s) |
| 24 | 1 | BU | 6 | Gun ammo |
| 25 | 1 | BU | 8 | Short official statement, or news summary (pin your note to the…board), pangram |
| 29 | 1 | EB | 9 | Cheerful & full of energy, pangram adj. |
| 21 | 1 | IN | 7 | Erect or assemble, verb; past tense is slang adj. for muscular |
| 30 | 1 | LI | 5 | Printed slander, noun |
| 30 | 1 | LI | 7 | Printed slander, noun |
| 33 | 1 | LU | 4 | Use oil to reduce friction and make something work better |
| 34 | 1 | NI | 6 | Small, tentative chew, verb; or a snack, noun |
| 35 | 1 | NU | 6 | Small bump, or small stunted ear of corn |
| 36 | 1 | NU | 6 | Small knob or lump |
| 37 | 1 | NU | 6 | (About a young woman) old enough to marry |
| 38 | 1 | TU | 4 | A long, hollow cylinder (Londoners call their subway "The …") |
| 38 | 1 | TU | 6 | A long, hollow cylinder (Londoners call their subway "The …") |
| 7 | 1 | UN | 6 | It holds your pants up |
| 9 | 1 | UN | 6 | Shape into a curve, or Oregon city |
| 21 | 1 | UN | 7 | Erect or assemble, verb; past tense is slang adj. for muscular |
This site provides clues for a day's New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle. It follows in Kevin Davis' footsteps. The original set of 4,500 clues came from him, and they still make up about three quarters of the current clue set.
The "Bee Roots" approach is to provide explicit clues for root words, not every word. 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