- Letters: D/ACINOR
- Words: 66
- Points: 345
- Pangrams: 3
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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 | AC | 6 | Treaty, or large Honda sedan; noun; or agree (we are in …), verb |
| 1 | AC | 9 | Handheld instrument with keys and buttons (think polkas), pangram |
| 2 | AC | 4,6 | Below 7 on the pH scale (amino …, sulfuric …, hydrochloric …) |
| 1 | AC | 5 | Strong & unpleasant taste or smell, adj. |
| 1 | AD | 5 | Decorate (… with) (Xmas tree, e.g.) |
| 1 | AN | 8 | South American snake that can grow very large |
| 1 | AN | 7 | Metal support for fireplace wood (firedog) |
| 1 | AN | 7 | Non–Apple phone OS, or humanoid robot (do they dream of electric sheep?) |
| 2 | AR | 7,8 | Region or scene of simple pleasure or quiet, city near LA, or mountainous southern region of Greece |
| 1 | AR | 5 | Passion (Latin “to burn”) |
| 1 | AR | 4 | Dry (climate or land), adj. |
| 1 | CA | 6 | Unfounded rumor (that old …), or plane forewing |
| 1 | CA | 6 | Unposed photo, or frank; adj. (Smile! You’re on “… Camera”) |
| 1 | CA | 6 | The quality of being both open and honest |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Member of the dog family, noun |
| 1 | CA | 4 | Thing used to play poker & bridge, noun; or ask for ID as proof of age before entry, verbified noun |
| 1 | CA | 7 | Heart, medical adj. (… arrest) |
| 1 | CA | 6 | Exercise that works the heart, slang abbr. |
| 1 | CA | 8 | Heart-shaped curve in math |
| 1 | CI | 6 | Noisy 17–year insect |
| 1 | CI | 9 | 24–hour body rhythm, physiology adj. |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Concluding event, remark, or section, especially in music |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Sequence of 3 nucleotides in DNA |
| 1 | CO | 7 | Agreement or harmony among nations or other groups |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Self-owned apartment with an HOA, slang abbr. |
| 1 | CO | 6 | Large vulture like bird |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Unit of firewood, or a string-like object (umbilical, vocal, electric …) |
| 1 | CO | 6 | Line or circle of police, soldiers, or guards preventing access, noun/verb (they'll have to … off the building) |
| 1 | CO | 7 | Bullfight, Spanish (… de toros) |
| 1 | CO | 8 | Hallway |
| 1 | DA | 4 | Mild exclamation; or mend holes in socks, verb |
| 1 | DI | 5 | Arab $, not supper |
| 1 | DI | 4 | Flintstones pet, or T. Rex family abbr. |
| 1 | DO | 4 | Extinct bird; or stupid person, slang |
| 1 | DO | 5 | Someone who gives (blood, organs, $) |
| 1 | DO | 6 | Thingamajig, slang; ends in “father” nickname |
| 1 | DO | 4 | Room or bldg. entrance |
| 1 | DO | 6 | Mahimahi; or South American freshwater fish with a golden body and red fins |
| 1 | DR | 9 | Harsh law, named for the first legislator of Athens (also think of one of Harry Potter's nemeses at Hogwarts) |
| 1 | DR | 8 | Synonym for harsh law, or having the form of a dragon |
| 1 | DR | 5 | What sink water goes down |
| 1 | DR | 5 | Star Wars robot (R2D2, C3PO, BB–8), or last syllable of Google phone OS (An…) |
| 1 | IN | 6 | Subspecies of cannabis plant |
| 1 | IN | 7 | Bulk-mail postage stamp substitute, or other distinguishing mark |
| 1 | IN | 6 | Not outside |
| 1 | IN | 6 | Progress (make), usually plural noun, contains street synonym |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Nothing, Spanish |
| 1 | NA | 5 | Lowest point, rock-bottom, depths; or below the observer in astronomy |
| 1 | NA | 5 | Greek water nymph, or dragonfly larva |
| 1 | OD | 4 | Bad smell (body …) |
| 1 | OR | 6 | Make someone a priest |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Nickname of Cpl. O’Reilly in M.A.S.H., or Doppler weather sensor acronym |
| 1 | RA | 6 | Unit of angular measure of a ○ |
| 1 | RA | 5 | AM/FM music & talk device in car & home |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Distance from a point on a circle to the center |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Harmful gas that seeps into homes; atomic no. 86 |
| 1 | RA | 4 | Sudden attack, as in “air” or police;” or insect spray |
| 1 | RA | 6 | Adj. for food with oil or fat that smells off |
| 1 | RA | 4 | Kirk’s Yeoman Janice on Star Trek, or South African $ |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Slang for odd or suspicious person (short for chosen by chance) |
| 1 | RI | 4 | Tough outer skin of certain fruit, especially citrus |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Street ("Abbey …"), or “rocky …” ice cream flavor |
| 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 |
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