- Letters: C/DEIMOT
- Words: 54
- Points: 305
- 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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | CE | 4,5 | Give up (power or territory) |
| 2 | CI | 4,5 | Quote as evidence |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Spherical or nearly spherical bacterium |
| 2 | CO | 4,5 | Write a computer program, or cipher a message to hide it |
| 1 | CO | 4 | ♀ student, or mixed ♂ & ♀ school, slang abbr. |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Travel toward a particular place, tell your dog to move toward you, or slang for “to orgasm” |
| 1 | CO | 7 | Funny genre, “… Central” “Daily Show” network |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Icy solar system body with a tail |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Paid jokester, or “… book” with superheroes |
| 2 | CO | 6,9 | Perpetrate, pledge, or put into a mental ward |
| 1 | CO | 9 | Group of people appointed for a specific function, usually members of a larger group |
| 1 | CO | 7 | Fancy word for “toilet,” or cabinet or chair containing one |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Soft murmur made by a dove or pigeon, noun/verb |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Foolish old ♂, or water bird |
| 1 | CO | 6 | Kid’s imaginary germ, or a body louse |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Dove shelter, NOT a jacket |
| 2 | DE | 6,7 | Write a computer program, or cipher a message to hide it |
| 2 | DE | 8,11 | Perpetrate, pledge, or put into a mental ward |
| 1 | DE | 6 | The act of making someone believe something that is not true; the act of giving a false impression |
| 2 | DE | 6,7 | Make up one’s mind |
| 1 | DE | 4 | Chrysler Bldg. style (Art …) |
| 2 | DE | 6,8 | Extract the essence of something by heating or boiling |
| 1 | DE | 7 | Killing of a god, noun |
| 2 | DE | 6,8 | Notice (Do I … a hint of lemon in this cake?) |
| 2 | DE | 5,6 | Frozen water |
| 2 | DI | 4,5 | Spotted cubes you roll, noun; or chop into cubes, verb |
| 1 | DI | 8 | Limit your food intake, verb/noun |
| 1 | DO | 6 | Slang: company that relies largely on internet commerce |
| 1 | EC | 7 | “Killing” of the environment |
| 1 | ED | 5 | Official order or proclamation |
| 1 | EI | 7 | Technical term for photographic memory |
| 2 | EM | 5,6 | Master of Ceremonies (sounded-out initials), slang noun/verb |
| 1 | EM | 6 | Med that induces vomiting |
| 1 | IC | 4 | Frozen water |
| 1 | ID | 7 | Stupid person (village …) |
| 2 | ME | 5,6 | Soldier who treats wounded |
| 1 | MI | 4 | 3 blind rodents in rhyme |
| 1 | MI | 7 | Imitative behavior, adj. |
| 1 | MI | 5 | Parrot someone’s speaking & mannerisms, verb; or the person doing it, noun |
| 1 | OC | 5 | Group of 8 (musicians) |
| 1 | TI | 7 | Small songbirds; plural; starts with “breast” slang & ends in “3 blind” rodent |
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