- Letters: E/BCILOT
- Words: 57
- Points: 268
- 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 | BE | 4 | Borscht veg |
| 1 | BE | 6 | VW compact car, or winged insect (scarab, e.g.) |
| 1 | BE | 4 | It rings |
| 1 | BE | 5 | Southern pretty ♀ (Scarlett O'Hara, e.g.) |
| 1 | BE | 4 | It holds your pants up |
| 1 | BE | 5 | Nut that Bloody Mary chews in “South Pacific”; AKA areca nut |
| 1 | BE | 5 | Be in a horizontal resting position, or say something false |
| 1 | BE | 8 | Small (Stuart or Chicken …), adj. |
| 1 | BI | 7 | Beautiful trinket, from French (word looks similar to holy book) |
| 1 | BI | 5 | Holy book (starts with Genesis) |
| 1 | BI | 4 | Liver secretion, or anger |
| 1 | BI | 6 | Temp soldier lodging |
| 1 | BI | 4 | Use teeth to cut into food (take a … out of the apple) |
| 1 | BO | 6 | Type of “head” doll that nods when moved |
| 1 | BO | 5 | Italian game similar to lawn bowling |
| 2 | BO | 6,6 | Baby foot covering |
| 1 | BO | 6 | Baby milk feeder |
| 1 | CE | 5 | Person who’s well-known, slang abbr. |
| 1 | CE | 4 | Prison “room,” or smallest unit of an organism |
| 2 | CE | 5,5 | Yo-Yo Ma’s instrument (also Pablo Casals') |
| 1 | CI | 4 | Quote as evidence |
| 1 | CO | 6 | Repair or make, especially shoes; make or put together roughly or hastily |
| 2 | CO | 7,11 | Gather (used plates), solicit & receive (charity $); or acquire (rare coins), verb, adj. form is a pangram |
| 1 | CO | 6 | Flange or socket for setting a gem |
| 1 | CO | 6 | “Lassie” dog breed |
| 1 | CO | 6 | Kid’s imaginary germ, or a body louse |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Dove shelter, NOT a jacket |
| 1 | EC | 8 | Wide-ranging tastes, styles, or ideas; adj. |
| 2 | EL | 5,7 | Vote into office |
| 1 | EL | 6 | Draw out a response, verb |
| 1 | EL | 5 | Select group that’s superior |
| 1 | IC | 6 | Frozen water spear formed from drips |
| 2 | LI | 5,7 | Printed slander, noun |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Itchy hair parasites |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Low-calorie or low-fat in ad-speak (Miller … beer) |
| 1 | LI | 6 | Small (Stuart or Chicken …), adj. |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Brain section, or part of ear most commonly pierced |
| 1 | OB | 4 | Double reed orchestra-tuning instrument |
| 1 | OC | 6 | Small S Am wild cat |
| 1 | OC | 5 | Group of 8 (musicians) |
| 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 | TE | 4 | Inform, verb; or Swiss archer William with an overture |
| 1 | TI | 4 | Thin ceramic wall, counter, flooring, or roofing square |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Name of a book, movie, or job, noun/verb; or a document showing you own a car or house |
| 1 | TI | 6 | Dot above an i or j, or really small amount |
| 1 | TO | 5 | Fabric for making “test” garments; add a vowel to end of above |
| 1 | TO | 6 | Commode; add a consonant to end of above |
| 1 | TO | 8 | Archaic, French term for the process of cleaning oneself (Eau de …) |
| 1 | TO | 6 | Drive or move in a leisurely manner, or play gently or repeatedly on a flute |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Reusable bag, noun; or schlep, verb |
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