- Letters: E/CHIKNT
- Words: 56
- Points: 272
- Pangrams: 3
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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 | CE | 4 | 1/100th of a dollar |
| 1 | CH | 5 | Bank draft, noun; or verify, verb |
| 1 | CH | 5 | Side of your face, noun; or sass (British) |
| 1 | CH | 7 | Domestic hen or rooster |
| 1 | CI | 4 | Quote as evidence |
| 1 | EN | 7 | Friendly understanding between countries (French) |
| 1 | EN | 6 | Tempt or lure by offering pleasure or advantage |
| 1 | ET | 4 | Engrave metal, glass or stone (…ing); or corrode (…ed away by acid) |
| 1 | ET | 5 | A set of moral principles, especially ones relating to or affirming a specified group, field, or form of conduct |
| 1 | ET | 6 | Denoting origin by birth or descent rather than by present nationality, adj. |
| 1 | HE | 4 | Mild cuss (“… of a job, Brownie!”), euphemism for Satan’s domain |
| 1 | HE | 6 | Full of incessant or frantic activity |
| 1 | HE | 6 | A person’s buttocks, slang |
| 1 | HE | 5 | Consequently, or in the future (…forth) |
| 1 | HI | 4 | Go for a vigorous walk through the woods, verb/noun |
| 1 | HI | 9 | Thumb a ride, compound |
| 1 | IN | 6 | Provoke unlawful behavior (… a riot) |
| 1 | IN | 5 | Concave belly button, slang |
| 1 | IN | 6 | Determined to do (I’m … on finishing this puzzle), adj.; or objective, noun |
| 1 | KE | 4 | Eager (peachy-…), adj.; or wail in grief, verb |
| 1 | KE | 5 | Brightly colored, banded material made in Ghana |
| 1 | KE | 5 | 2-masted sailboat, homophone of “nab” synonym |
| 1 | KI | 7 | Relating to motion (… energy), adj. |
| 2 | KI | 7,11 | Food-prep room (perfect pangram) + small version of it (pangram) |
| 1 | KI | 4 | Flying toy with a string & tail |
| 1 | KI | 6 | Young cat |
| 1 | KN | 4 | Mid-leg joint, noun; or hit someone with one, verb |
| 1 | NE | 4 | Body part between head & torso, noun; or kiss & caress amorously, slang verb |
| 1 | NE | 7 | Often colorful & patterned shirt accessory worn with a suit, compound |
| 1 | NE | 4 | Hawaiian goose & state bird |
| 1 | NI | 4 | Pleasant in manner; or city in SE France |
| 1 | NI | 5 | Specialized segment of the market |
| 1 | NI | 5 | Your sibling’s daughter |
| 1 | NI | 4 | Number of justices on Supreme Court |
| 2 | NI | 8,10 | One more than the number of holes on a golf course |
| 1 | NI | 9 | XC in Roman numerals |
| 1 | NI | 4 | Part of the day when it’s dark, slang spelling |
| 2 | TE | 4,6 | Last word in name of Cambridge school M.I.T., abbr. |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Adolescent (…ager), or numbers 13–19 |
| 1 | TE | 5 | What you use to chew, plural |
| 1 | TE | 6 | When the things you use to chew start to emerge, you chew on everything, and you drool all the time |
| 1 | TE | 5 | Between nine and eleven |
| 1 | TE | 5 | A principle or belief; or a Christopher Nolan time-travel film |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Shelter you sleep in while camping |
| 1 | TH | 4 | Archaic form of “you” |
| 1 | TH | 4 | At that time, or next; adv. (not always, but every now & …) |
| 1 | TH | 6 | (Formal or archaic adv.) from a place previously mentioned, or as a result (…-forth means “from that time forward") |
| 1 | TH | 7 | Wide (slices of bread, e.g.), adj. (verb form is a pangram) |
| 1 | TH | 7 | Copse; dense stand of bushes, shrubs, or trees (change last letter in above verb) |
| 1 | TH | 5 | Yours, archaic singular |
| 1 | TI | 6 | Entry card for events & travel, or illegal parking citation |
| 1 | TI | 4 | Fork prong |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Give 10% of your income to the Church |
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