- Letters: N/AILOPV
- Words: 42
- Points: 189
- 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 | AN | 5 | Yearly record book |
| 1 | AN | 4 | Soon, poetically |
| 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 | AN | 5 | Atom or molecule with a net electric charge |
| 1 | AP | 5 | Bee-related adj. |
| 1 | AV | 5 | Bird-related adj. (… Flu, e.g.) |
| 1 | LA | 5 | Hawaiian porch or island |
| 1 | LA | 7 | Sheep (wool) oil, used as skin moisturizer |
| 1 | LA | 4 | Put something down |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Roaring animal that travels in a pride (… King) |
| 1 | LL | 5 | South American grassy plain |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Borrowed $, noun/verb |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Sex organ region of body (fruit of my …s); anagram of “… King” animal |
| 1 | LO | 4 | “Crazy” water bird on Canada $1 coin |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Indiaan flaat breaad |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Spike that’s hammered, noun/verb |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Grandma, slang; or Peter Pan dog |
| 1 | NA | 5 | Seafaring military force, adj., not belly button |
| 1 | NO | 9 | 1 followed 30 zeroes; Latin 9 prefix |
| 1 | NO | 4 | 12:00, midday, 🕛 |
| 1 | NO | 4 | Star explosion, PBS science show, or Chevy model that doesn’t go (in Spanish) |
| 1 | ON | 5 | Veg that makes you cry when cut (for some, this is the "dreaded root veg") |
| 1 | OP | 7 | Belief or judgment (In my humble …) |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Sensation from an injury, noun/verb |
| 1 | PA | 6 | Toasted Italian sandwich |
| 1 | PA | 8 | Spaniel with butterfly ears |
| 1 | PA | 8 | Decorative building used as a shelter in a park |
| 1 | PI | 5 | Liberace’s instrument (also Billy Joel's and John Legend's, not to mention Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Clara Schumann, Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubinstein, and Glenn Gould) |
| 1 | PI | 7 | Instrument with 88 keys played by a roll of punched paper |
| 1 | PI | 7 | Passenger seat behind rider on motorcycle or horse; starts with above |
| 1 | PI | 6 | Part of bird wing, or small gear engaging with large one (as in “rack & …” steering) |
| 1 | PI | 6 | Fosse musical about Charlemagne’s son, or apple variety |
| 1 | PL | 5 | Ordinary, unadorned, NOT a 747; adj. |
| 1 | PL | 4 | Detailed proposal (teacher’s lesson …), noun; or prepare in advance, verb |
| 1 | PO | 6 | Plain-woven fabric, typically a lightweight cotton, with a corded surface |
| 1 | VA | 4 | Conceited (Carly Simon “You’re So …”) |
| 2 | VA | 7,8 | Flavor from beans of white (plain …) ice cream + chemical compound of that flavor, C₈H₈O₃ |
| 1 | VA | 7 | Group of commuters who travel together in a baby bus |
| 1 | VI | 7 | Bad guy in a story |
| 1 | VI | 6 | Itzhak Perlman’s fiddle |
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