- Letters: N/FIORTU
- Words: 42
- Points: 177
- 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 | FI | 6 | “Done” in Italian |
| 1 | FO | 4 | Type face; in some churches, it holds water for baptism |
| 1 | FO | 5 | (Literary) source (of knowledge or water, e.g.) |
| 1 | FR | 5 | Opposite of back; edge of a weather system |
| 1 | FR | 8 | Point at which a plan is realized |
| 1 | FU | 5 | Japanese mattress, or sofa that can be unfolded into a bed |
| 1 | IN | 4 | Collection of facts and tips, abbr. |
| 1 | IN | 4 | Enter (go … the room), preposition |
| 1 | IN | 5 | Announce upcoming thing (next guest), or prelude (beginner’s course, book preface), slang abbr. |
| 2 | IN | 6,9 | TurboTax company, or know by feeling rather than evidence |
| 1 | IN | 5 | Vase used for storing ashes |
| 1 | IR | 4 | Element Fe (atomic number 26), or hot clothes presser, noun/verb |
| 1 | NI | 5 | Slang abbr. for chem. used as explosive & heart med. |
| 1 | NO | 4 | “Black” in French; or dark mystery genre (film …) |
| 1 | NO | 4 | 12:00, midday, 🕛 |
| 1 | NO | 4 | Edible seaweed, eaten either fresh or dried in sheets |
| 1 | NO | 6 | Vague idea, or small sewing accessory |
| 1 | NO | 4 | In grammar, a person, place or thing |
| 1 | NU | 9 | food, nourishment |
| 1 | ON | 5 | Veg that makes you cry when cut (for some, this is the "dreaded root veg") |
| 1 | ON | 4 | Preposition when mounting an animal or boarding a large vehicle |
| 1 | OU | 6 | Sprint more quickly or farther in a footrace than someone else, compound |
| 1 | RO | 6 | Spiral pasta, fusilli |
| 1 | RU | 4 | Destroy, verb (eating snacks before dinner will … your appetite) |
| 1 | RU | 6 | Follow-up election after a tie or inconclusive result; rain or meltwater that flows because the soil cannot absorb it |
| 1 | RU | 6 | Slight error in rotating tool, compound |
| 1 | RU | 4 | Smallest of the litter |
| 1 | TI | 4 | Shade of color, noun; or darken car windows, verb |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Animated film or character, slang abbr. (car…) |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Ripped, adj. or past participle |
| 1 | TO | 7 | Italian ice cream with rum, almonds, & cherries |
| 1 | TR | 6 | Son of Poseidon, largest Neptune moon; mollusk with a tall spiral shell |
| 1 | TU | 7 | College fee |
| 1 | TU | 4 | Change direction, verb/noun/adj. (use your … signal when driving!) |
| 1 | TU | 7 | Junction at which a road branches off from a main road (compound); someone or something repellent (slang) |
| 1 | TU | 7 | Number of people who show up at an event (we had a great … last night for our poetry reading), compound |
| 1 | UN | 5 | Of suitable quality (all the news that's … to print), adj.; be of the right shape and size, verb/noun |
| 1 | UN | 6 | Top of a house (where Santa lands) |
| 1 | UN | 5 | Labor org. (Teamsters, AFL-CIO); or in math, what you get from putting sets together |
| 1 | UN | 4 | Something whole on its own but part of larger thing (apartment, Army squad, e.g.) |
| 1 | UN | 4 | Archaic preposition (Handel’s Messiah “For … us a child is born”) |
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