- Letters: I/AGLNYZ
- Words: 58
- Points: 352
- 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 | AG | 5 | Another time; once more; adv. |
| 1 | AG | 5 | How old you are, noun; or grow older, verb; or period of history, noun |
| 1 | AI | 6 | Be sick |
| 2 | AL | 5,8 | Sync up positionally (… the 2 holes so you can put a screw through them) |
| 1 | AL | 8 | Put (fears) at rest |
| 1 | AL | 7 | Friend (person, country) who joins you for a common purpose in a conflict, noun/verb |
| 1 | AN | 9 | Examine the elements or structure of something; gerund is a pangram |
| 1 | AN | 6 | Medical term for severe (chest) pain |
| 1 | AN | 7 | They can be acute, right, or obtuse |
| 1 | GA | 7 | Choke or retch, verb; or material placed over someone's mouth to prevent them from speaking or crying out, noun/verb |
| 3 | GA | 4,6,7 | Increase the amount or rate of (you always … a few pounds on a cruise) |
| 1 | GA | 7 | Liver secretion, or bold behavior |
| 1 | GA | 7 | Group of thugs ("Working on the Chain …"), noun/verb |
| 1 | GA | 8 | Lanky & bumbling; gerund (think a newborn foal trying to stand; starts with a group of thugs such as the Crips; the more common term ends in –LY) |
| 1 | GA | 7 | Nerve cluster |
| 1 | GA | 5 | Homosexual (used especially of a man); lighthearted and carefree (dated) |
| 1 | GA | 6 | Stare intently |
| 1 | GI | 7 | Live performance by or engagement for a musician or group, especially playing pop or jazz; noun/verb |
| 2 | GI | 6,8 | Silly laugh; verb/noun |
| 2 | GI | 4,7 | Fish breathing organ |
| 1 | GI | 7 | Clear alcoholic spirit flavored with juniper berries; or card game |
| 1 | GL | 7 | Fit window panes, or overlay with a shiny coating |
| 1 | GL | 4 | Nervous system connective tissue “cell,” (anagram of venomous lizard “monster”) |
| 1 | IL | 4 | Not healthy, sick, adverb/noun; hardly, or only with difficulty, adverb (they could … afford the cost of a new car) |
| 2 | IN | 5,8 | Decorate something by embedding pieces of a different material in it, flush with its surface |
| 1 | IN | 6 | A baseball game is divided into 9 of these |
| 1 | LA | 7 | Fall behind, verb/noun |
| 1 | LA | 5 | Hawaiian island or porch |
| 2 | LA | 4,6 | Put something down |
| 1 | LA | 6 | Relax, idle (… around) |
| 1 | LA | 6 | unwilling to work or use energy |
| 1 | LA | 12 | Dawdle, slang (ends in “mouth covering” synonym) |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Monet floral subject (water …) |
| 1 | LI | 6 | A queue, what you wait in for your turn |
| 1 | LY | 5 | Be in a horizontal resting position, or say something false |
| 1 | NA | 7 | Annoy or irritate with persistent fault-finding or continuous urging |
| 2 | NA | 4,7 | Spike that’s hammered, noun/verb |
| 1 | NA | 8 | ♀ goat, or nursemaid |
| 1 | NI | 8 | Cause slight but persistent annoyance or worry (a …ing suspicion or doubt) |
| 1 | NI | 5 | Foolish or silly person |
| 1 | ZA | 7 | Sharp change of direction; usually the second part of a compound for a path with multiple sharp changes of direction |
| 1 | ZA | 6 | Amusingly unconventional |
| 1 | ZI | 7 | Sharp change of direction; noun/verb |
| 3 | ZI | 6,8,10 | Path with multiple sharp changes of direction; compound adj./verb |
| 3 | ZI | 4,5,7 | Enthusiasm, move rapidly with a high-pitched noise, criticize, or center word in Sheldon Cooper’s “gotcha!” catchphrase |
| 1 | ZI | 6 | Sunflower within the daisy family (what other flower starts with Z?) |
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