- Letters: T/EGIMNZ
- Words: 44
- Points: 216
- 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 | EM | 7 | Renowned (scholar); used with “domain” to mean gov property grab |
| 2 | EM | 4,8 | Give off (radiation, signals) |
| 1 | EN | 7 | Friendly understanding between countries (French) |
| 1 | GE | 4 | ♂ counterpart to “lady,” slang abbr. |
| 1 | GE | 7 | Obtain |
| 2 | IG | 6,8 | Catch fire, or cause to do so |
| 1 | IM | 8 | About to happen (… demise, e.g.), adj. |
| 1 | IN | 6 | Determined to do (I’m … on finishing this puzzle), adj.; or objective, noun |
| 3 | IT | 4,7,9 | One thing as part of a set, 10 or fewer of these at an express register |
| 2 | ME | 4,7 | Encounter (I’m supposed to … him in the park) |
| 1 | ME | 6 | Experienced and trusted adviser, usually an older person |
| 2 | ME | 4,6 | Dispense justice (“… out punishment”), homophone of “animal flesh for consumption” |
| 2 | MI | 4,7 | Breath candy or its flavor or plant source, noun; or create coins, verb |
| 1 | MI | 4 | Tiny tick, or very small amount (I'm a … testy today) |
| 1 | MI | 4 | Catcher’s glove, or Sen. Romney |
| 1 | MI | 6 | Fingerless winter glove for a kid or Sen. Bernie Sanders at inauguration |
| 1 | NE | 7 | Open-meshed fabric twisted, knotted, or woven together at regular intervals, noun/verb |
| 1 | NE | 7 | User of the web or online communities, especially an avid or compulsive one |
| 1 | NI | 8 | One more than the number of holes on a golf course |
| 1 | NI | 4 | Part of the day when it’s dark, slang spelling |
| 1 | TE | 6 | Short stick that holds up a golf ball, noun/verb |
| 2 | TE | 4,7 | Be full or swarming with; homophone of Yankees group |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Adolescent (…ager), or numbers 13–19 |
| 1 | TE | 8 | Set of rooms within a house, or cheap multi-family bldg. |
| 1 | TE | 5 | A principle or belief; or a Christopher Nolan time-travel film |
| 2 | TE | 4,7 | Shelter you sleep in while camping |
| 2 | TI | 4,6 | What clocks measure & display |
| 1 | TI | 4 | Fork prong |
| 3 | TI | 5,7,8 | Color slightly (…ed with pink), verb/noun |
| 2 | TI | 4,7 | Shade of color, noun; or darken car windows, verb |
| 1 | ZI | 4 | Tubular pasta |
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