- Letters: P/ILNORU
- Words: 34
- Points: 120
- 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 | LI | 4 | Fat-sucking procedure, abbr. |
| 4 | 1 | LO | 4 | Closed curve |
| 3 | 1 | LO | 6 | Move in an ungainly way in a series of clumsy paces or bounds |
| 2 | 1 | LO | 8 | Sucking candy on a stick |
| 5 | 1 | OP | 7 | Belief or judgment (“In my humble …) |
| 6 | 1 | PI | 4 | Tablet of medicine |
| 10 | 1 | PI | 5 | Poster of a sex symbol ("model" or "girl"), or how you tack it to the wall |
| 9 | 1 | PI | 6 | Part of bird wing, or small gear engaging with large one (as in “rack & …” steering) |
| 11 | 1 | PI | 6 | Fosse musical about Charlemagne’s son, or apple variety |
| 7 | 1 | PI | 7 | Passenger seat behind rider on motorcycle or horse; starts with above |
| 12 | 1 | PL | 4 | Sound of Alka–Seltzer before the fizz |
| 14 | 1 | PO | 4 | Opinion survey, homophone of above (straw, Gallup, e.g.) |
| 15 | 1 | PO | 4 | Croquet on horseback |
| 16 | 1 | PO | 4 | Swimming venue |
| 17 | 1 | PO | 4 | Tire out (I’m …-ed); or defecate, slang verb/noun |
| 18 | 1 | PO | 4 | Lacking $, or worse than ideal |
| 20 | 1 | PO | 4 | Smutty images |
| 21 | 1 | PO | 4 | Flow rapidly in a steady stream |
| 13 | 1 | PO | 5 | Disease that put FDR in a wheelchair |
| 20 | 1 | PO | 5 | Smutty images |
| 19 | 1 | PO | 6 | Plain-woven fabric, typically a lightweight cotton, with a corded surface |
| 25 | 1 | PR | 4 | Support (… up), verb; on-stage object or ballot initiative abbr., noun |
| 22 | 1 | PR | 5 | Protein particle thought to cause mad cow disease |
| 23 | 1 | PR | 5 | Existing before in time, adj. (Sorry, I have a … engagement) |
| 24 | 1 | PR | 7 | In grammar, word that refers to people being discussed (I or you, e.g.) |
| 26 | 1 | PU | 4 | Hungarian herding dog with dreadlocks |
| 27 | 1 | PU | 4 | Tug on, verb |
| 28 | 1 | PU | 4 | Soft, wet, shapeless mass (“… Fiction” film), or floating bits of fruit in orange juice |
| 30 | 1 | PU | 4 | A knitting stitch, NOT an oyster gem |
| 32 | 1 | PU | 4 | Happy cat rumbling sound |
| 29 | 1 | PU | 5 | Student, or black dot at center of eye |
| 31 | 1 | PU | 7 | Steal, esp. secretly, pangram verb (Poe’s “The …ed Letter”) |
| 8 | 1 | UN | 5 | Thin piece of metal with a sharp point at one end, used especially for securing fabric, noun/verb |
| 33 | 1 | UP | 4 | Fairy tale-starting preposition (“Once … a time”) |
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