- Letters: O/ADNRTU
- Words: 69
- Points: 287
- 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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AD | 5 | Decorate (… with) (Xmas tree, e.g.) |
| 1 | AN | 4 | Soon, poetically |
| 1 | AN | 9 | Write something, for example music, in a specialized system; or write comments in the margins of a book |
| 1 | AO | 5 | Main blood pipe from heart |
| 1 | AR | 5 | Passion (Latin “to burn”) |
| 1 | AR | 6 | Nearby (it's … here somewhere, just … the corner) adj.; or encircling, preposition |
| 1 | AU | 6 | Polar lights (… Borealis) |
| 1 | AU | 4 | Car, abbr., or “self” prefix |
| 1 | DO | 4 | Extinct bird; or stupid person, slang |
| 1 | DO | 5 | Someone who gives (blood, organs, $) |
| 1 | DO | 5 | Ring-shaped fried cake, modern spelling, older spelling is a pangram |
| 1 | DO | 6 | Thingamajig, slang; ends in “father” nickname |
| 1 | DO | 4 | Room or bldg. entrance |
| 1 | DO | 6 | Mahimahi; or South American freshwater fish with a golden body and red fins |
| 1 | DO | 6 | “Old & feeble” insult used by N Korea about US Pres 45 & 47 |
| 1 | DO | 4 | Gloomy appearance or manner |
| 1 | DU | 5 | Shoulder-shrug non-response to a question; “I have no idea”; slang |
| 1 | NA | 8 | Provide a spoken commentary |
| 1 | NO | 6 | French opposite of “oui,” + “painting & sculpture”; compound |
| 1 | NO | 4 | 12:00, midday, 🕛 |
| 1 | NO | 7 | Write something, for example music, in a specialized system; or write comments in the margins of a book |
| 1 | NO | 4 | In grammar, a person, place or thing |
| 1 | OD | 4 | Bad smell (body …) |
| 1 | ON | 4 | Preposition when mounting an animal or boarding a large vehicle |
| 1 | OR | 6 | Make a speech |
| 1 | OR | 7 | Full, round, and imposing voice; or pompous writing |
| 1 | OU | 5 | One-up, surpass, compound verb |
| 1 | OU | 7 | opposite of inside the house, adj., compound |
| 1 | OU | 5 | Closing show music (antonym begins with IN–) |
| 2 | OU | 6,6 | Sprint more quickly or farther in a footrace than someone else, compound |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Harmful gas that seeps into homes; atomic no. 86 |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Slang for odd or suspicious person (short for chosen by chance) |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Street ("Abbey …"), or “rocky …” ice cream flavor |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Horse with 2–colored coat |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Lion “shout” |
| 1 | RO | 5 | Musical form with recurring theme, often final movement of a piece, from Italian |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Large crucifix above altar, anagram of bldg. entrance |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Plant anchor that sucks up water |
| 1 | RO | 7 | Move in a circle around an axis or center |
| 1 | RO | 5 | Device or blade that spins |
| 1 | RO | 6 | Plump (Saint Nick might be called this) |
| 1 | RO | 7 | Circular, domed hall (US Capitol, e.g.), pangram |
| 1 | RO | 5 | Circular, adj.; or move through a turn, verb; or replace a number with the nearest whole number, verb, gerund form is a pangram |
| 1 | RO | 4 | Disorderly retreat, or decisive defeat |
| 1 | RU | 9 | Evasive treatment (“they gave me the …”), compound (lit., jog in a circle) |
| 1 | RU | 6 | Slight error in rotating tool, compound |
| 1 | TA | 7 | Clay oven used in & near India; add –I suffix for food from it |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Asian veg that sounds like fortunetelling cards |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Fortunetelling cards |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Skin “ink” |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Frog cousin |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Animated film or character, slang abbr. (car…) |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Ripped, adj. or past participle |
| 1 | TO | 7 | Cyclone that took Dorothy to Oz |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Bull, Spanish |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Legal wrong, NOT pastry |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Take a guided one of these in a foreign city (on a … bus?) adj/noun/verb |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Promote, or offer horse racing tips |
| 1 | TR | 4 | Step on; snake flag motto "Don't … on me" |
| 1 | TR | 4 | Fast walking pace for horses or people |
| 1 | TR | 5 | Common game fish (rainbow …, e.g.) |
| 1 | TU | 10 | Unexpected change, amount of time needed to complete a task, or hwy. pullout for changing direction; compound pangram |
| 1 | TU | 7 | Number of people who show up at an event (we had a great … last night for our poetry reading), compound |
| 1 | TU | 5 | Private instructor |
| 1 | UD | 4 | Japanese noodles |
| 1 | UN | 4 | Perform an action, achieve or complete something; hairstyle (American slang); social event (British slang) |
| 1 | UN | 4 | Archaic preposition (Handel’s Messiah “For … us a child is born”) |
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