- Letters: E/HMNOTW
- Words: 57
- Points: 192
- 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 | EM | 5 | Express feelings (especially when acting) |
| 1 | EN | 7 | Friendly understanding between countries (French) |
| 1 | HE | 4 | Iron-containing biological compound (in blood, e.g.) |
| 1 | HE | 4 | Chop or cut (something, especially wood or coal) with a tool such as an axe |
| 1 | HO | 4 | Where you live |
| 1 | HO | 8 | City where you’re from, compound pangram |
| 1 | HO | 4 | Sharpen (a blade or skill) |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Encounter (I’m supposed to … him in the park) |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Viral internet funny image, noun/verb |
| 1 | ME | 7 | Souvenir in English; or 2000 thriller about an amnesiac (Guy Pearce) |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Office note abbr. |
| 1 | ME | 6 | Experienced and trusted adviser, usually an older person |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Cat sound, noun/verb |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Dispense justice (“… out punishment”), homophone of “animal flesh for consumption” |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Slang abbr. of addictive stimulant (crystal …) |
| 1 | MO | 6 | Very brief period of time (“I’ll be with you in just a …”) |
| 1 | MO | 8 | Sound that is unchanging in pitch (“She spoke in a … that put me to sleep”) |
| 1 | MO | 5 | 3–card … con game |
| 1 | MO | 4 | Speck of dust |
| 1 | MO | 5 | Short piece of sacred choral music, typically polyphonic & unaccompanied |
| 1 | NE | 4 | Hawaiian goose & state bird |
| 1 | NE | 4 | Atomic number 10, gas in lighted signs |
| 1 | NE | 4 | Aquatic salamander, or former House Speaker Gingrich |
| 1 | NE | 6 | Unit of force named after Sir Isaac …, or fig cookie |
| 1 | NO | 4 | Quantity of zero; “all” antonym |
| 1 | NO | 5 | Group of 9 (musicians) |
| 1 | NO | 4 | What you pass to someone in class, or ♪ in music |
| 1 | OM | 4 | Portent, or Damien’s horror films (“The …”) |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Be full or swarming with; homophone of Yankees group |
| 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 | 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 |
| 1 | TE | 5 | Projecting piece of wood attached to a mortise, noun; or connect with one of those, verb |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Shelter you sleep in while camping |
| 1 | TH | 4 | Archaic form of “you” |
| 1 | TH | 4 | Pronoun for people you previously mentioned (I bathed the kids & put … to bed) |
| 1 | TH | 5 | Subject of a talk, or an idea that recurs in a work of art, noun (and rarely, verb - gerund is a pangram) |
| 1 | TH | 4 | At that time, or next; adv. (not always, but every now & …) |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Large, heavy book |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Character of sound, a sound (dial or ring-); noun; give greater strength or firmness to a body or a muscle; verb |
| 1 | TO | 5 | 1,000 kilograms, UK spelling |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Reusable bag, noun; or schlep, verb |
| 1 | TO | 5 | Symbolic object (… pole) |
| 1 | TO | 6 | N Am sparrow named for its call; starts with “haul away a car” |
| 1 | TO | 8 | Posh term for a row house; compound pangram; mirror image of other pangram |
| 1 | TW | 4 | Britspeak for excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental; lop off final consonant of bird vocalization |
| 1 | TW | 5 | Slang abbr. for a preadolescent; change last letter in above |
| 1 | TW | 5 | Bird vocalization, or post on a social media platform that Elon Musk bought, wrecked, and renamed |
| 1 | WE | 4 | Leave; move from one place to another |
| 1 | WH | 4 | Exclamation of excitement on a sled or playground slide |
| 1 | WH | 4 | At what time? |
| 1 | WH | 4 | Sharpen a blade or appetite |
| 1 | WH | 4 | Exclamation of relief after a close call (said as you wipe your brow) |
| 1 | WO | 5 | ♀ (Julia Roberts “Pretty…”) |
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