- Letters: R/ADGNOU
- Words: 51
- Points: 201
- 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 | AD | 5 | Decorate (… with) (Xmas tree, e.g.) |
| 1 | AG | 4 | Seaweed gel used as food thickener & bacteria culture medium |
| 1 | AG | 5 | Ancient Greek market |
| 1 | AG | 7 | Stuck on the ground under shallow water (a huge container ship ran … in the Suez Canal), pangram |
| 1 | AN | 6 | Long-haired rabbit or goat, or fabric from its hair (… sweater) |
| 1 | AR | 5 | Passion (Latin “to burn”) |
| 1 | AR | 5 | Atomic no. 18, abundant gas in Earth atmosphere |
| 1 | AR | 6 | Nearby (it's … here somewhere, just … the corner) adj.; or encircling, preposition |
| 1 | AU | 5 | Portend |
| 1 | AU | 4 | Supernatural glow encircling a person |
| 1 | AU | 6 | Polar lights (… Borealis) |
| 1 | DA | 4 | Mild exclamation; or mend holes in socks, verb |
| 1 | DO | 5 | Someone who gives (blood, organs, $) |
| 1 | DO | 4 | Room or bldg. entrance |
| 1 | DO | 6 | Mahimahi; or South American freshwater fish with a golden body and red fins |
| 1 | DO | 4 | Gloomy appearance or manner |
| 1 | DR | 4 | Pull roughly, or pass time slowly & tediously, verb + adj. |
| 1 | DR | 6 | Flying fire-breather (Smaug) |
| 1 | DR | 7 | Cavalry officer, noun; or coerce, verb |
| 1 | DR | 4 | Something you take when you're sick (or addicted) |
| 1 | DU | 5 | Close-fitting cloth worn to protect a hairstyle |
| 1 | GO | 6 | 3 Greek sisters with snakes for hair & petrifying gazes |
| 1 | GO | 5 | Fleshy fruit with hard skin (some are eaten, some are used for decoration, usually in the Fall) |
| 1 | GR | 4 | Alumnus, abbr. |
| 1 | GR | 4 | Parent’s mom, slang abbr. |
| 1 | GR | 5 | Magnificent or imposing in appearance, size, or style, adj.; a thousand $, slang |
| 2 | GR | 7,8 | Your parent's father (familiar) |
| 1 | GR | 5 | Make an unhappy sound, or respond to a lame joke |
| 1 | GR | 4 | Watered-down (nautical) rum |
| 1 | GR | 6 | The solid surface of the earth, noun; prohibit from flying, verb |
| 1 | GU | 4 | Cluster bean |
| 1 | GU | 5 | Someone who keeps watch, often armed, noun/verb |
| 1 | GU | 4 | Indian spiritual teacher |
| 1 | OD | 4 | Bad smell (body …) |
| 1 | OR | 5 | Red-haired ape, slang abbr. |
| 1 | OR | 5 | Keyboard instrument with pipes (church…) |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Nickname of Cpl. O’Reilly in M.A.S.H., or Doppler weather sensor acronym |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Harmful gas that seeps into homes; atomic no. 86 |
| 1 | RA | 4 | Indian ♫ pattern used as basis for improv, starts with old cloth |
| 1 | RA | 4 | Kirk’s Yeoman Janice on Star Trek, or South African $ |
| 1 | RA | 4 | Make a bell sound, verb/noun; encircle, verb/noun |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Street ("Abbey …"), or “rocky …” ice cream flavor |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Horse with 2–colored coat |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Lion “shout” |
| 1 | RO | 5 | Musical form with recurring theme, often final movement of a piece, from Italian |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Large crucifix above altar, anagram of bldg. entrance |
| 1 | RO | 5 | Circular, adj. |
| 1 | RU | 4 | Make a bell sound, verb/noun; encircle, verb/noun |
| 1 | RU | 9 | Evasive treatment (“they gave me the …”), compound (lit., jog in a circle) |
| 1 | UN | 8 | The solid surface of the earth, noun; prohibit from flying, verb |
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.
A few words can have one meaning as a suffixed form and another as a stand-alone word. EVENING, for example. In those cases I will use the meaning that I think is more common.
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