- Letters: O/ABCGIL
- Words: 51
- Points: 193
- 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 | AB | 5 | Heat water to 212°F or 100°C |
| 1 | AG | 4 | Very excited to hear or see something, adj. |
| 1 | AI | 5 | Garlic mayonnaise, from French for garlic |
| 1 | BA | 6 | African tree |
| 1 | BI | 8 | Biopharmaceutical |
| 1 | BI | 10 | Study of living organisms |
| 1 | BL | 4 | Gelatinous mass, or 1950s alien horror film |
| 1 | BL | 4 | Group of like-minded voters |
| 1 | BL | 4 | Online journal, noun/verb |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Taiwan sweet tea with gelatin pearls |
| 1 | BO | 5 | Italian game similar to lawn bowling |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Heat water to 212°F or 100°C |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Thrown weighted string weapon |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Cotton seed target for weevil |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Western string tie |
| 1 | BO | 4 | Breast, slang |
| 1 | BO | 6 | “Owie” you kiss & make better, mistake, or what 2 ghosts say |
| 1 | BO | 8 | Far-right anti-government extremist movement & militia (… bois), starts with ghost scare word; originally a style of Latino popular music and dance from the 1960's |
| 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 | 4 | Reason to use Drāno, or wooden shoe, or a type of dancing |
| 1 | CO | 4 | “Dirty fuel” dug from mines; what Santa puts in your stocking if you’re bad |
| 1 | CO | 4 | 1st part of popular soda brand name |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Spherical or nearly spherical bacterium |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Hot winter drink with marshmallows, or the powder it’s made from |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Wind up spirally, verb/noun (Hamlet’s “mortal …”) |
| 1 | CO | 4 | Pepsi & RC dark brown soda flavor |
| 1 | CO | 5 | Baby or horse upset tummy |
| 1 | CO | 6 | The act of working with someone to produce or create something, abbrev |
| 1 | CO | 4 | “Warm” antonym, or “neat!” |
| 1 | GI | 6 | Male escort; Richard Gere “American …” film |
| 1 | GL | 4 | Semi-liquid lump, as in cheese |
| 1 | GL | 6 | Worldwide, adj., as in “… warming” |
| 1 | GO | 4 | Objective, or sport target or point |
| 1 | GO | 6 | Large number (10¹⁰⁰), NOT a web search site |
| 1 | IG | 5 | Ice house |
| 2 | IL | 7,9 | Thinking that is rational |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Wolf, Spanish |
| 1 | LO | 5 | From a nearby area, or a train making all stops |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Crazy, Spanish |
| 1 | LO | 4 | A particular point or place |
| 1 | LO | 6 | Room with one side open to a garden |
| 2 | LO | 5,7 | Thinking that is rational |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Company graphic symbol; Target’s is a red bullseye ◎ |
| 1 | LO | 4 | Hang out or droop, as a dog’s tongue |
| 1 | OL | 4 | Mixture, or spicy Spanish stew, NOT margarine |
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