- Letters: D/EHIKLO
- Words: 61
- Points: 253
- Pangrams: 1
|
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
| |
|
Table content
|
| answers covered | answer's first two letters | answer's length | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | DE | 4,6 | Property ownership paper, noun; or to transfer ownership, verb |
| 2 | DE | 4,5 | Deceptive movement that induces an opponent to move out of position (ice hockey) |
| 1 | DE | 4 | Place to get cold cuts |
| 1 | DE | 4 | Michael’s computer company, or farmer locale in kid’s song |
| 2 | DI | 6,7 | Pass time aimlessly or unproductively |
| 1 | DI | 4 | Cease to live |
| 1 | DI | 4 | Wall or embankment built to prevent flooding from the sea |
| 1 | DI | 5 | Phallus-shaped sex toy |
| 1 | DI | 4 | Pickle spice |
| 1 | DI | 5 | 1–way semiconductor with 2 terminals |
| 1 | DO | 4 | Extinct bird; or stupid person, slang |
| 2 | DO | 4,5 | Pineapple brand, noun; or distribute (… out portions of food) |
| 2 | DO | 4,6 | Small human figure toy such as Barbie, noun; or get all dressed up for a party, verb |
| 1 | DO | 7 | Move on a mobile platform, for example a movie camera |
| 2 | DO | 6,7 | Scribble or draw absentmindedly |
| 1 | ED | 6 | Water swirl, NOT clothier Bauer |
| 1 | EK | 4 | Scrape out (a living or a win, e.g.) |
| 2 | EL | 5,6 | Leave out a sound or syllable when speaking |
| 2 | HE | 4,6 | Pay attention to (you didn’t … my advice) |
| 1 | HE | 6 | Back of your foot (Achilles’ weakness), noun; or (of a dog) follow closely |
| 1 | HE | 4 | Grasp in your hands, or wait “on …” (on a call with tech support, e.g.) |
| 1 | HI | 4 | Stay out of sight (play “… & seek”), verb; or animal skin, noun |
| 1 | HI | 4 | Go quickly (archaic) |
| 1 | HI | 5 | Go for a vigorous walk through the woods, verb/noun |
| 1 | HI | 6 | What Jack & Jill went up |
| 1 | HO | 4 | Use a long-handled gardening tool with a thin metal blade |
| 1 | HO | 4 | Grasp in your hands, or wait “on …” (on a call with tech support, e.g.) |
| 1 | HO | 5 | Golf ball target (get a …-in-one), noun/verb |
| 3 | HO | 4,6,6 | “Little Red Riding …” noggin covering |
| 1 | HO | 6 | Column of weathered rocks, or black magic; rhyming word |
| 1 | HO | 6 | “Peter Pan” Captain …, or what snags a fish |
| 2 | ID | 4,5 | Not doing anything; or, said of an engine, running but not in gear |
| 1 | ID | 4 | Punk rocker Billy; “American …” TV singing contest; or public figure you worship (…-ize) |
| 1 | IO | 6 | Compound made with element 53 |
| 1 | KE | 6 | Bottom stabilizing ridge of a boat or ship, noun; or capsize, verb (… over) |
| 1 | KE | 6 | Thick raised scar |
| 2 | KI | 6,6 | Child, informal noun; juvenile goat, noun; deceive playfully, noun |
| 1 | KI | 5 | A friendly or slightly condescending form of address, slang |
| 1 | KI | 6 | Murder |
| 1 | LE | 4 | Summary opening sentence or paragraph of a news article (bury the …); NOT "follow" antonym |
| 1 | LI | 6 | Cover for the top of a jar; or skin that covers your eye |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Be in a horizontal resting position, or say something false |
| 1 | LI | 5 | Similar, adj.; or find agreeable or enjoyable, verb |
| 1 | LI | 10 | Probability, pangram |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Vein of metal ore (mother…) |
| 1 | LO | 6 | Hang out or droop, as a dog’s tongue |
| 1 | LO | 6 | Direct one’s gaze toward someone or something, verb/noun |
| 1 | OI | 5 | Viscous liquid used for lubrication, noun/verb; (food) a fat that's liquid at room temperature |
| 1 | OL | 5 | Having lived for a long time |
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