- Letters: N/ABEILV
- Words: 59
- Points: 261
- 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 | AL | 5 | Extraterrestrial (“In space no one can hear you scream”) |
| 1 | AL | 9 | Able to be transferred to new ownership, legal adj. (negative form is better known from in… rights) |
| 1 | AN | 5 | Yearly record book |
| 1 | AN | 6 | Heat then cool metal or glass slowly to toughen it |
| 1 | AN | 4 | Opening at the end of the alimentary canal through which solid waste matter leaves the body, adj. form also means uptight |
| 1 | AN | 5 | Heavy block for metalworking (… Chorus from Verdi's Il Trovatore) |
| 1 | AV | 5 | Bird-related adj. (… Flu, e.g.) |
| 1 | BA | 6 | Whale straining “teeth” |
| 1 | BA | 5 | Unoriginal, dull |
| 1 | BA | 6 | Common yellow plantain variety |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Cause of annoyance, or DC Comics villain (he’s the … of my existence) |
| 1 | BE | 4 | Legume (lima …), noun; or hit on the head, verb |
| 1 | BE | 8 | A pitch aimed at a batter’s head, compound |
| 1 | BE | 6 | Head-hugging brimless cap with a button at the crown (propeller optional), NOT a legume |
| 1 | BE | 7 | Straight, direct course between 2 points, compound (think this puzzle’s name) |
| 1 | BE | 4 | Past participle of “to exist” (“How have you … doing?”) |
| 2 | BI | 7,8 | Period of 2 years, Latin plural |
| 2 | BL | 4,5 | Russian pancake |
| 1 | EL | 4 | Énérgy, stylé, énthusiasm; from Frénch |
| 1 | EL | 6 | Hour before noon |
| 1 | EN | 6 | Having the power, skill, means, or opportunity to do something, adj. (She was … to walk at 14 months) |
| 1 | EN | 8 | Jealousy, noun/verb |
| 1 | EN | 7 | Exist, verb; or not on tape (TV show), adj. |
| 1 | EV | 4 | Number that can be divided by 2 without a remainder, or flat & smooth; adj.; or to make or become that (… out the edges) |
| 1 | IN | 11 | Extraterrestrial (“In space no one can hear you scream”) |
| 1 | IN | 5 | Stupid, silly, ridiculous (… questions or comments); adj. |
| 1 | IN | 5 | Concave belly button, slang |
| 1 | LA | 5 | Hawaiian island or porch |
| 1 | LA | 4 | Small road (Beatles’ Penny … or Superman’s Lois …) |
| 1 | LA | 4 | Put something down |
| 1 | LE | 4 | Not fatty (… meat), adj.; or incline (… back in your chair) |
| 1 | LE | 6 | Cause to rise, as bread with yeast |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Bank hold on a mortgaged property, NOT tilt |
| 2 | LI | 4,6 | A queue, what you wait in for your turn |
| 1 | LI | 5 | Cloth napkin fabric |
| 1 | LI | 5 | Exist, verb; or not on tape (TV show), adj. |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Indiaan flaat breaad |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Spike that’s hammered, noun/verb |
| 1 | NA | 5 | Showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Grandma, slang; or Peter Pan dog |
| 1 | NA | 5 | Seafaring military force, adj., not belly button |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Central part of a church building |
| 1 | NA | 5 | Belly button |
| 1 | NE | 4 | Hawaiian goose & state bird |
| 1 | NI | 6 | Small, tentative chew, verb; or a snack, noun |
| 1 | NI | 4 | Number of justices on Supreme Court |
| 1 | VA | 4 | Conceited (Carly Simon “You’re So …”) |
| 1 | VA | 4 | Device that shows wind direction |
| 2 | VA | 7,8 | Flavor from beans of white (plain …) ice cream + chemical compound of that flavor, C₈H₈O₃ |
| 1 | VE | 4 | Tube that returns blood to the heart |
| 1 | VE | 5 | Corrupt (susceptible to bribery), adj. |
| 1 | VE | 6 | Catholic minor forgivable sin, adj. |
| 1 | VI | 7 | Bad guy in a story |
| 1 | VI | 10 | 19–stanza poem made up of five tercets (3 stanzas) followed by a quatrain (4 stanzas), with two repeating rhymes and two refrains, from French |
| 1 | VI | 4 | Climbing plant (Marvin Gaye “I Heard It Through The Grape…”) |
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