- Letters: L/ENOPTY
- Words: 48
- Points: 169
- 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 | EE | 4 | Snake-like fish |
| 1 | EL | 5 | Run away to marry |
| 1 | EY | 6 | Small round hole for shoelaces or strings; diminutive of sight organ |
| 1 | LE | 4 | Pre–Easter holiday when you give up meat, noun; or “borrowed” counterpart, verb |
| 1 | LE | 5 | Slowly, in music & Italian |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Hang out or droop, as a dog’s tongue |
| 1 | LO | 6 | Move in an ungainly way in a series of clumsy paces or bounds |
| 2 | LO | 4,6 | Solitary (… wolf, e.g.), adj. |
| 2 | LO | 4,5 | “Crazy” water bird on Canada $1 coin |
| 2 | LO | 4,5 | Closed curve |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Pirate treasure, noun; or to steal during a riot, verb |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Run like a wolf, with bounding strides |
| 1 | LO | 5 | State-sponsored numbers betting ticket (Powerball, e.g.) |
| 1 | NE | 6 | “Stinging” plant, noun; or to annoy, verb |
| 1 | NO | 4 | Xmas time, or playwright Coward |
| 1 | NY | 5 | Synthetic stocking fabric |
| 1 | OL | 4 | Margarine |
| 1 | ON | 4 | Sole, nothing more (“I’m … human!”) |
| 1 | OP | 6 | Pull on a door handle to gain admittance, verb/adj. |
| 1 | PE | 4 | Skin of a fruit, noun; or to remove it, verb |
| 1 | PE | 6 | Small, rounded, compressed mass (food, buckshot, rabbit dung) |
| 1 | PE | 7 | Clump in a group of racing cyclists (French “small ball”), or trendy exercise bike |
| 1 | PE | 4 | Bombard (with snowballs), verb; or animal fur, noun |
| 1 | PE | 6 | Humanity, or celeb mag with annual “sexiest man” |
| 1 | PL | 6 | Sufficient amount, or end of oldest US branded candy name |
| 1 | PL | 4 | Sound of Alka–Seltzer before the fizz |
| 1 | PL | 4 | Scheme, noun or verb (Roth’s “The … Against America”); or storyline in fiction |
| 1 | PL | 4 | Cunning ruse |
| 1 | PO | 4 | What a firefighter slides down |
| 1 | PO | 4 | Opinion survey, homophone of above (straw, Gallup, e.g.) |
| 1 | PO | 6 | Dusty flower reproductive emission that causes allergies |
| 1 | PO | 4 | Croquet on horseback |
| 1 | PO | 5 | Small growth on a stalk (in your colon, e.g.) |
| 1 | PO | 4 | Swimming venue |
| 1 | PO | 8 | Strong (… [drinks]—common Jeopardy category); or able to achieve an erection (think IM– prefix), adverb form is a pangram |
| 1 | PY | 5 | Traffic cone or endzone marker |
| 1 | TE | 8 | Obsolete printer that sent & received messages |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Inform, verb; or Swiss archer William with an overture |
| 1 | TE | 8 | Support rod for a circus enclosure, or a movie expected to do well, compound, ends in list word |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Road use fee (paid at a booth) |
| 1 | TO | 4 | An implement (hammer & screwdriver, e.g.); often stored in a …box |
| 1 | TO | 6 | Drive or move in a leisurely manner, or play gently or repeatedly on a flute |
| 1 | TO | 6 | Become unsteady & fall, or knock over (think regime change); verb |
| 1 | YE | 4 | Shout (Billy Idol’s “Rebel …”) |
| 1 | YE | 4 | Short, sharp cry of pain; or business review site & app |
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