- Letters: T/ABCEJL
- Words: 51
- Points: 242
- 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 | AB | 5 | Become less intense (the storm suddenly …d) |
| 2 | AB | 4,7 | Help commit a crime |
| 1 | AB | 6 | The worst possible, adj. (… poverty) |
| 1 | AB | 6 | Remove (body tissue) surgically, verb |
| 2 | AC | 6,7 | Vinegar adj., or acid it contains |
| 1 | BA | 6 | Artistic dance form (“Swan Lake,” e.g.) |
| 1 | BA | 4 | (Of a hawk) flap wings to escape, homophone of worm on a fish hook |
| 1 | BA | 6 | Sustained fight between armed forces (… of the Bulge), noun/verb |
| 2 | BE | 4,8 | Stir or strike vigorously, or trounce in a contest |
| 1 | BE | 4 | Borscht veg |
| 1 | BE | 6 | VW compact car, or winged insect (scarab, e.g.) |
| 1 | BE | 4 | It holds your pants up |
| 1 | BE | 4 | 2nd Greek letter, ß |
| 1 | BE | 5 | Nut that Bloody Mary chews in “South Pacific”; AKA areca nut |
| 1 | BE | 6 | Running behind (I’m … for class), or deceased (The … Charles Grodin) |
| 1 | BL | 4 | Make a sound like a sheep, goat, or calf; slang |
| 1 | BL | 5 | More common term for wavering cry |
| 1 | CA | 7 | Feline ♂ whistle or jeer at passing ♀ (compound) |
| 1 | CA | 6 | Cows & bulls (…prod) |
| 1 | CL | 5 | Spike on sports shoes |
| 1 | EA | 7 | Consume food |
| 1 | EC | 5 | Stylé, brilliancé, conspicuous succéss; Frénch for “splintér” or “sparklé” |
| 3 | EJ | 5,6,9 | Force or throw something out; escape from a disabled fighter plane |
| 1 | EL | 5 | Make someone ecstatically happy, verb |
| 3 | EL | 5,7,9 | Vote into office |
| 1 | JE | 4 | Ballet jump (French) |
| 1 | LA | 7 | Produce milk, verb (breastfeed a baby) |
| 1 | LA | 7 | Capillary that absorbs fat in the small intestine |
| 1 | LA | 4 | Running behind (I’m … for class), or deceased (The … Charles Grodin) |
| 1 | LA | 5 | Coffee with espresso & steamed milk |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Indian small drum pair; NOT dining room furniture |
| 1 | TA | 5 | A piece of furniture with a flat top & legs (kitchen, dining room, coffee…) |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Flat slab with writing (the 10 commandments?), medicine pill, or portable touchscreen computer (iPad, Kindle Fire) |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Musical direction meaning “silent” |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Diplomacy, sensitivity |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Mineral in baby powder |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Story (fairy…), NOT what dogs wag; noun |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Of greater than average height, adj. |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Rat out your sibling to your parents |
| 1 | TA | 10 | Someone who rats out a sibling (compound) |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Blue-green color, or a duck with a stripe of that color |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Nipple |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Inform, verb; or Swiss archer William with an overture |
| 1 | TE | 8 | Revealing, compound adj.; or indication, compound noun (Poe’s “The … Heart”) |
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