- Letters: T/EHNOPY
- Words: 51
- Points: 241
- 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 | EN | 7 | Friendly understanding between countries (French) |
| 2 | EY | 8,8 | Cuspid; canine (fang) below your peeper (I’d give my … for); Possibly only in Spelling Bee, can also be singular |
| 1 | HO | 8 | Container for sweet bee product, compound pangram |
| 1 | HO | 4 | Owl sound, noun/verb |
| 1 | HO | 6 | Asian dish similar to fondue; AKA steamboat, compound |
| 1 | NE | 8 | A person who is new to a subject, skill, or belief; synonym for proselyte, pangram |
| 1 | NE | 8 | Fictional medicine for sorrow |
| 1 | NE | 5 | UK outhouse, slang; or butterfly & fish mesh catcher adj. |
| 1 | NO | 5 | Group of 9 (musicians) |
| 1 | NO | 4 | What you pass to someone in class, or ♪ in music |
| 1 | ON | 4 | Preposition when mounting an animal or boarding a large vehicle |
| 1 | OP | 8 | Adversary, rival, game competitor; noun |
| 1 | PE | 4 | Archaic for “repressed,” now used as …-up frustration, adj. |
| 1 | PE | 5 | Trivial (… crime) (think late “Heartbreakers” singer Tom) |
| 1 | PE | 6 | Hallucinogenic cactus |
| 1 | PH | 9 | The set of observable characteristics of an organism (biology), pangram |
| 1 | PH | 5 | Picture made using a camera: short form is more common in the Bee, long form is a pangram |
| 1 | PH | 6 | Smallest unit of light |
| 1 | PO | 4 | Author of verse |
| 1 | PO | 7 | Temp floating bridge; or cylinder full of air, two of which keep a type of slow boat afloat |
| 1 | PO | 6 | (Historical or British) sweet or pretty child, or voodoo doll |
| 1 | PO | 6 | Strong or powerful (… [drinks]—common Jeopardy category); or able to achieve an erection (think IM– prefix), adverb form is a pangram |
| 1 | PO | 5 | Kid’s toilet |
| 1 | PY | 6 | Large constrictor snake; or popular programming language (whose logo is a pair of snakes) |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Adolescent (…ager), or numbers 13–19 |
| 1 | TE | 5 | Minuscule, or trendy youth (…-bopper) |
| 2 | TE | 5,6 | Native Am conical hut; Spelling Bee accepts 3 spellings |
| 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 | 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 | At that time, or next; adv. (not always, but every now & …) |
| 1 | TH | 4 | Plural non-gendered pronoun (… were delicious candies) |
| 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 | Broadway award, or Maj. Nelson on "Jeannie" |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Animated film or character, slang abbr. (car…) |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
| 2 | TO | 5,6 | What you chew with |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Small grayish slender-bodied shark, or mango tree grove, noun; or archaic term for drink alcohol to excess, verb; homophone of grayish-brown color |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Reusable bag, noun; or schlep, verb |
| 1 | TY | 4 | What you do on a keyboard |
| 1 | TY | 7 | Hurricane in the western Pacific Ocean |
| 1 | TY | 4 | Keybord eror, slang |
| 1 | YE | 5 | Matchmaker or gossip, Yiddish |
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