- Letters: O/ACIKLT
- Words: 58
- Points: 199
- 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 | AI | 5 | Garlic mayonnaise, from French for garlic |
| 1 | AL | 5 | Apportion $ or other resource (time, e.g.) |
| 1 | AL | 4 | Sax smaller than a tenor, or voice higher than one |
| 1 | AT | 5 | Coral island (Bikini, e.g.) |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Bean source of Hershey Bars |
| 1 | CA | 6 | Rough cotton fabric, or colorful cat |
| 1 | CA | 8 | Caribbean veg dish |
| 1 | CI | 4 | “Hi” or “Bye” in Italian (“… bella”) |
| 1 | CL | 6 | Combo sex & waste cavity in non-mammals |
| 1 | CL | 5 | Sleeveless jacket, or espionage “… & dagger” term |
| 1 | CL | 5 | It tells time |
| 1 | CL | 4 | Lump of blood that stops bleeding or circulation |
| 1 | CO | 4 | “Dirty fuel” dug from mines; what Santa puts in your stocking if you’re bad |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Outdoor jacket (trench-…) |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Central American raccoon |
| 1 | CO | 8 | Flap on lower back of jacket; popular politicians have long ones, inverse of formal jacket list word, compound |
| 1 | CO | 4 | 1st part of popular soda brand name |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Spherical or nearly spherical bacterium |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Rooster, or slang for penis |
| 1 | CO | 8 | Crested parrot species |
| 1 | CO | 8 | Mixed alcoholic drink (rooster + what dogs wag), compound pangram |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Hot winter drink with marshmallows, or the powder it’s made from |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Wind up spirally, or Hamlet’s “mortal …” |
| 1 | CO | 6 | Relating to sexual intercourse, formal adj. |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Pepsi & RC dark brown soda flavor |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Baby or horse upset tummy |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Young ♂ horse |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Prep or heat food |
| 1 | CO | 4 | “Warm” antonym, or “neat!” |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Foolish old ♂, or water bird |
| 1 | IO | 4 | 9th Greek letter, I; or extremely small amount |
| 1 | KI | 4 | Greek 1,000 prefix; also an abbr. for 1,000 grams of weight |
| 1 | KO | 5 | Tree climbing marsupial “bear” |
| 1 | KO | 4 | Small African tree with nuts that flavor Pepsi |
| 1 | KO | 4 | Crazy or eccentric person, NOT a chef |
| 1 | LO | 5 | From a nearby area, or a train making all stops |
| 1 | LO | 4 | A door fastener with a key, noun/verb |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Crazy, Spanish |
| 1 | LO | 4 | A particular point or place |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Hang out or droop, as a dog’s tongue |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Direct one’s gaze toward someone or something, verb/noun |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Pirate treasure, noun; or to steal during a riot, verb |
| 1 | LO | 5 | State-sponsored numbers betting ticket (Powerball, e.g.) |
| 1 | OC | 5 | Base–8 number system |
| 1 | OL | 4 | Mixture, or spicy Spanish stew, NOT margarine |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Mexican filled tortilla, or “… Bell” restaurant |
| 1 | TA | 8 | Formal ♂ dinner jacket worn with a white bowtie, compound |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Skin “ink” |
| 1 | TI | 8 | Compound word that is both parts of a mechanical clock sound |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Reach for and hold; remove (… away) |
| 1 | TO | 7 | Virtuoso musical piece (Bach’s “… & Fugue in D Minor”) |
| 1 | TO | 4 | 2nd half of a timepiece sound |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Work hard (… away, trying to find the last few Spelling Bee words) |
| 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 | 7 | A set of implements |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
| 1 | TO | 5 | The whole amount (sum of numbers, e.g.) |
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