- Letters: P/ACENTU
- Words: 54
- Points: 244
- Pangrams: 2
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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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | AC | 6,10 | Consent to receive, or come to believe; verb |
| 1 | AP | 5 | Sleep breathing disorder |
| 1 | AP | 5 | Walk back & forth anxiously, verb; or speed of an activity, noun |
| 1 | CA | 6 | Small piece of bread or pastry with a savory topping, often served with drinks at a reception or formal party |
| 1 | CA | 4 | Superhero back covering, or land that juts into water (… Cod) |
| 1 | CA | 6 | Short feline snooze, compound |
| 1 | CU | 5 | Britspeak for a serving of tea |
| 1 | CU | 5 | Class clown, slang; or audio or video made from pieces of existing media, compound |
| 1 | EP | 4 | Fencing sword |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Scruff of the neck |
| 1 | NE | 4 | Tide with least difference between low & high water |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Walk back & forth anxiously, verb; or speed of an activity, noun |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Formal agreement, treaty (don’t make one with the Devil) |
| 1 | PA | 5 | Song of praise or triumph |
| 1 | PA | 7 | Remedy for all difficulties or diseases |
| 1 | PA | 8 | Italian bacon |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Single sheet of window glass |
| 1 | PA | 4 | What a dog does when it’s hot, verb; or singular of trousers, noun |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Father, slang |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Chopped liver (… de foie gras) or other spréâd (French), or archaic for a person’s head |
| 2 | PA | 6,8 | Legal document that protects an invention |
| 1 | PE | 5 | Tranquility |
| 1 | PE | 6 | Legume that helped make George Washington Carver famous, not to mention being Jimmy Carter's cash crop |
| 1 | PE | 4 | Fuel from bog soil, NOT Secretary Buttigieg |
| 1 | PE | 5 | smooth pinkish-brown nut with an edible kernel similar to a walnut; pies made with this are a specialty of the American South |
| 1 | PE | 4 | Backside of a hammer |
| 1 | PE | 4 | Baby bird sound, Easter marshmallow, or a furtive look |
| 1 | PE | 7 | What you do to atone for a sin |
| 1 | PE | 5 | 1/100 of a £, or former VP & Indiana Gov |
| 1 | PE | 7 | Baseball banner |
| 1 | PE | 5 | Tube pasta, vodka optional |
| 1 | PE | 4 | Archaic for “repressed,” now used as …-up frustration, adj. |
| 1 | PE | 7 | Five-carbon chain |
| 1 | PU | 4 | Dark red or purple-brown color |
| 1 | PU | 9 | Insert marks indicating how a piece of written text should be read; or occur at intervals throughout a period of time, pangram verb |
| 1 | PU | 4 | American football kick when the offense gives up; or flat-bottomed boat; or Irish £ (slang) |
| 2 | PU | 4,5 | For an insect, the state between larva and adult |
| 1 | PU | 6 | For an insect, enter the state between larva and adult |
| 1 | PU | 6 | Marionette, but no strings (Elmo, e.g.) |
| 1 | PU | 4 | Hit a golf ball gently on the green |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Spanish bar snack (usually plural) |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Adhesive strip |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Brownish gray color |
| 1 | TE | 6 | Vessel, often with elaborate decoration, for holding a serving of a hot, aromatic beverage made from Camellia sinensis |
| 2 | TE | 5,6 | Native Am conical hut; 2 spellings |
| 1 | TU | 6 | Periodic car maintenance, compound (oil change, tire rotation, etc.) |
| 1 | UN | 12 | Consent to receive, or come to believe; verb |
| 1 | UN | 5 | Appropriate or suitable in the circumstances; or likely to do something, adj. (negated adverb form is a pangram) |
| 1 | UN | 5 | Tool for writing with ink, noun/verb; or small enclosure for keeping animals, noun/verb |
| 1 | UN | 5 | Remove the cover from a pen tip so you can write |
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