- Letters: A/BEFILX
- Words: 46
- Points: 214
- 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 | 4 | Having the power, skill, means, or opportunity to do something, adj. (She was … to walk at 14 months) |
| 1 | AF | 7 | Friendly, good-natured, easy to talk to |
| 1 | AF | 5 | Stick something onto something else (ends in “repair” synonym), verb |
| 1 | AL | 6 | Disorder where affected patients can spell and write words and sentences but cannot read or comprehend written language: word blindness |
| 1 | AL | 7 | Grass for hay, or Little Rascal |
| 1 | AL | 5 | Criminal’s excuse |
| 1 | AL | 6 | (Bio term) 1 of 2 or more versions of a gene |
| 1 | AX | 4 | Figure skating jump |
| 2 | AX | 6,7 | Medical term for armpit |
| 1 | AX | 5 | Line about which a body rotates (the Earth revolves around its … once every 24 hours) |
| 1 | AX | 4 | What your car's wheels are attached to |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Rum sponge cake, or Ali & his 40 thieves |
| 1 | BA | 6 | Talk rapidly in a foolish or excited way (like an infant); homophone of Genesis “Tower of …,” verb |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Infant, slugger Ruth, or pig film |
| 1 | BA | 5 | Genesis “Tower of …,” noun |
| 1 | BA | 6 | Bewilder or perplex |
| 2 | BA | 4,6 | Fee to avoid prison, noun; scoop water out of a ship, or abandon, verb |
| 1 | BA | 7 | Court guard |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Parcel of hay, or actor Christian |
| 1 | BA | 4 | Where Cinderella lost her slipper, noun; or squeeze or form into a spherical shape, verb |
| 1 | BE | 6 | Happen to someone (said about something bad) |
| 1 | BI | 7 | Line about which a body rotates (the Earth revolves around its … once every 24 hours) |
| 1 | BI | 8 | Invoice, or actor Murray, noun/verb |
| 1 | BI | 8 | Latin for lips, or lips of vagina |
| 1 | BL | 4 | Reveal a secret by indiscreet talk |
| 1 | FA | 5 | Short story, typically with animals as characters, conveying a moral |
| 1 | FA | 4 | Don’t pass a test |
| 1 | FA | 7 | Fried chickpea balls often served in pita |
| 1 | FA | 4 | Autumn, noun; or plummet, verb |
| 1 | FA | 8 | Capable of making mistakes |
| 1 | FE | 5 | ♂, slang (young or little …) |
| 1 | FI | 6 | Of or due from a son or daughter, adj. |
| 1 | FI | 8 | Add material until the container or hole is at capacity |
| 1 | FI | 7 | Repair, verb/noun; fasten securely in a particular position |
| 1 | FL | 4 | Soft, loose flesh on a person’s body; fat |
| 1 | FL | 5 | Swing (arms) wildly |
| 1 | FL | 4 | Blue-flowered plant, source of linseed oil |
| 1 | FL | 4 | Hopping insect whose bites cause itching in dogs & cats |
| 1 | LA | 5 | Tag or sticky paper with info (Avery mailing …) |
| 2 | LA | 5,6 | Latin for lips, or lips of vagina |
| 1 | LA | 6 | Easily and frequently altered; unstable |
| 1 | LE | 4 | Nissan electric car; 4 of these on a clover is lucky |
| 1 | LI | 6 | Responsible by law/legally answerable; likely to do something (he's ... to get upset) |
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