- Letters: H/ANORTW
- Words: 36
- Points: 153
- 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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| answers covered | answer's first two letters | answer's length | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AR | 5 | Buddhist who has achieved nirvana; ends in “cap” synonym |
| 1 | AT | 7 | Prevent from accomplishing something |
| 1 | HA | 6 | Farm implement consisting of a heavy frame with teeth that is dragged over plowed land to break up clods, remove weeds, and cover seed, noun; or cause distress, verb (usually in gerund form) |
| 1 | HA | 4 | ♂ deer, not ♥ |
| 1 | HA | 4 | Archaic 3rd person singular present form of "possess" (Hell … no fury) |
| 1 | HA | 5 | Yoga type that pairs poses with breathing |
| 1 | HA | 8 | Shrub or tree of the rose family, with white, pink, or red blossoms and small dark red fruits, commonly used for hedges (pangram) |
| 1 | HO | 4 | Crystallized frost |
| 1 | HO | 5 | High respect/great esteem; noun/verb |
| 1 | HO | 6 | US Marine cheer word, each syllable pronounced separately |
| 1 | HO | 4 | Owl sound |
| 1 | HO | 4 | Jewish circle dance (“The …”) |
| 1 | HO | 4 | Hard body part in some animals; many have two, rhinos have one |
| 1 | HO | 6 | Scary Steven King genre |
| 1 | NO | 5 | Used, especially in jocular or dialectal speech, to emphasize a negative, compound |
| 1 | NO | 5 | Opposite of south |
| 1 | OA | 4 | Vow or pledge (you’re under one in court testimony) |
| 1 | TH | 4 | Comparison word (bigger … a breadbox) |
| 1 | TH | 4 | Pronoun for the other thing (this & …) |
| 1 | TH | 4 | Unfreeze, with “out” |
| 1 | TH | 5 | Sharp point grown by some plants as protection |
| 1 | TH | 6 | Front of neck, “Deep…” Watergate source |
| 2 | TH | 5,6 | Hurl (a baseball, e.g.) |
| 1 | TH | 6 | Prevent from accomplishing something |
| 1 | TO | 5 | What you chew with |
| 1 | TO | 5 | 1st 5 books of Bible in scroll form for Jews |
| 1 | TR | 5 | Archaic var. of “honesty”; you pledge your … in marriage vows |
| 1 | WA | 5 | North American burning bush, or red-faced Native American mascot used by the Cleveland baseball team when they were the "Indians" (Chief …) |
| 1 | WH | 4 | Interrogative akin to “Pardon? Say again?” |
| 1 | WH | 7 | Stand with shelves for small objects, compound |
| 1 | WH | 4 | Command to a horse to make it stop or slow down |
| 1 | WO | 6 | Rhyming exclamation of excitement or joy (Homer Simpson) |
| 1 | WO | 5 | Value (net …) |
| 1 | WR | 5 | Anger, literary |
| 1 | WR | 5 | Angry, archaic |
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