- Letters: E/CILMOP
- Words: 47
- Points: 164
- Pangrams: 2
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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 | CE | 4 | Prison “room,” or smallest unit of an organism |
| 2 | CE | 5,5 | Yo-Yo Ma’s instrument (also Pablo Casals') |
| 1 | CL | 5 | Literary term for a region with ref. to prevailing weather (sunny…, e.g.), NOT scale a ladder |
| 1 | CO | 6 | “Lassie” dog breed |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Travel toward a particular place, tell your dog to move toward you, or slang for “to orgasm” |
| 1 | CO | 6 | Force someone to do something |
| 1 | CO | 7 | Gather or put together info for a report, or turn a program into machine code; pangram verb |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Deal effectively with something difficult |
| 1 | EL | 5 | Run away to marry |
| 1 | EM | 5 | Master of Ceremonies (sounded-out initials), slang noun/verb |
| 1 | EP | 4 | Fencing sword |
| 1 | EP | 4 | Long poem celebrating heroic feats, noun; or historically important, adj. (… struggle, … quest) |
| 1 | IC | 6 | Frozen water spear formed from drips |
| 1 | IM | 5 | Drive forward, or force or urge someone to do something, verb |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Itchy hair parasites |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Small green citrus fruit |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Run like a wolf, with bounding strides |
| 1 | ME | 5 | Confusing scuffle |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Viral internet funny image, noun/verb |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Office note abbr. |
| 1 | MI | 4 | 3 blind rodents in rhyme |
| 1 | MI | 4 | 5,280 feet, or 1.6 km |
| 1 | MI | 4 | Silent performer |
| 1 | MI | 5 | Old stencil duplicator, abbr. (missing –graph suffix) |
| 1 | MO | 4 | Burrowing blind rodent, or embedded spy |
| 1 | MO | 4 | Sulk, brood; verb, past tense is also a bicycle with a small motor |
| 1 | OL | 5 | Oil adj. (… acid), from Latin for oil |
| 1 | OL | 4 | Margarine |
| 1 | OL | 5 | Skateboard jump, or Stan’s slapstick partner |
| 1 | PE | 4 | Skin of a fruit, noun; or to remove it, verb |
| 1 | PE | 4 | Baby bird sound, Easter marshmallow, or a furtive look |
| 1 | PE | 8 | Similar to Spanish for "film," a protein film (on teeth & smoked meat, e.g.) |
| 1 | PE | 6 | Humanity, or celeb mag with annual “sexiest man” |
| 1 | PI | 5 | Section of something larger (homophone of “tranquility” term), noun; or assemble (… together), verb |
| 1 | PI | 4 | Heap, stack (dirty laundry, raked leaves, etc.), noun/verb |
| 1 | PI | 6 | Zit |
| 1 | PI | 4 | Copper or plastic tube that carries water, noun; or to move liquid in one, verb; decorate a cake with icing |
| 1 | PL | 4 | Ballét bénd |
| 1 | PO | 4 | Verse that usually rhymes, from Frost et al. |
| 1 | PO | 4 | What a firefighter slides down |
| 1 | PO | 7 | A strong verbal or written attack on someone or something, pangram |
| 1 | PO | 6 | Law enforcement personnel (Help! Call the…!) (pic of me with Officer Joe at Comic–Con), |
| 1 | PO | 4 | Botany term for apple or pear (think French) |
| 1 | PO | 6 | Large Asian grapefruit |
| 1 | PO | 6 | Extra seat on a horse or bike saddle, knob on a sword; or gymnastics “horse” |
| 1 | PO | 4 | Francis, Pius, etc. (head of Roman Catholic Church) |
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