- Letters: T/AEMNPY
- Words: 61
- Points: 261
- 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 | AN | 4 | $ to join a poker game, or “before” prefix |
| 2 | AN | 7,8 | It picks up TV or radio signals |
| 1 | AT | 7 | Make an effort to achieve or complete something, verb/noun |
| 1 | EA | 5 | Consume food |
| 1 | EM | 7 | Flow or originate from (warmth from a fireplace, e.g.) |
| 1 | EM | 5 | Containing nothing, adj.; or remove all contents, verb |
| 1 | EN | 7 | Friendly understanding between countries (French) |
| 1 | MA | 7 | Florida creature AKA “sea cow” |
| 1 | MA | 5 | Ray (fish) |
| 2 | MA | 4,5 | Fellow member (cast-…) or joint occupant (room-…) |
| 1 | MA | 5 | Dull finish on paint or photos |
| 1 | ME | 5 | The average in math, noun; unkind, adj. (“… Girls”); or intend (I didn’t … to do it) |
| 2 | ME | 4,5 | Animal flesh for consumption (beef, ham, etc.) |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Encounter (I’m supposed to … him in the park) |
| 1 | ME | 6 | Experienced and trusted adviser, usually an older person |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Beyond prefix, greek |
| 1 | ME | 4 | Dispense justice (“… out punishment”), homophone of “animal flesh for consumption” |
| 1 | NA | 8 | Cloth strip sewn into clothing to identify the owner (compound made from what you're called and narrow strip of material) |
| 1 | NA | 6 | Swimming or floating adj. from Latin |
| 1 | NA | 5 | Well dressed, adj. |
| 2 | NE | 4,6 | Tidy |
| 1 | NE | 5 | UK outhouse, slang; or butterfly & fish mesh catcher adj. |
| 1 | PA | 4 | What a dog does when it’s hot, verb; or singular of trousers, noun |
| 1 | PA | 5 | ♀ undergarment, slang (…hose) |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Chopped liver (… de foie gras) or other spréâd (French), or archaic for a person’s head |
| 2 | PA | 6,8 | Legal document that protects an invention |
| 1 | PA | 5 | Peppermint candy (& friend of Marcie in “Peanuts”) or burger form |
| 1 | PA | 7 | $ for goods & services (your…is due today), pangram noun |
| 2 | PE | 4,5 | Fuel from bog soil, NOT Secretary Buttigieg |
| 1 | PE | 7 | Baseball banner |
| 1 | PE | 4 | Archaic for “repressed,” now used as …-up frustration, adj. |
| 1 | PE | 7 | Five-carbon chain |
| 1 | PE | 5 | Trivial (… crime) (think late “Heartbreakers” singer Tom) |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Not wild, adj./verb |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Pack down (start of Florida city on a bay) |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Spanish bar snack (usually plural) |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Adhesive strip |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Worn & shabby, or of poor quality; Scottish |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Group of sports players (Yankees, e.g.), noun; … up, verb |
| 1 | TE | 8 | A fellow player in the same group, compound |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Nipple |
| 1 | TE | 4 | Be full or swarming with; homophone of Yankees group |
| 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 | 4 | Office worker fill-in, slang abbr. |
| 1 | TE | 5 | Entice (as a donut to a dieter, e.g.), verb |
| 1 | TE | 6 | Person a landlord rents to |
| 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 | 4 | Shelter you sleep in while camping |
| 1 | TY | 4 | What you do on a keyboard |
| 2 | YE | 5,5 | 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