- Letters: I/ACELNP
- Words: 70
- Points: 382
- Pangrams: 4
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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 | AC | 6 | African or Australian wattle tree |
| 1 | AC | 4 | Trendy smoothie berry |
| 1 | AL | 5 | Extraterrestrial (“In space no one can hear you scream”) |
| 1 | AL | 8 | Association formed for mutual benefit, especially involving nations |
| 1 | AL | 6 | Relating to high mountains |
| 1 | AP | 5 | Bee-related adj. |
| 1 | AP | 6 | Each, or cost per item, adv. |
| 1 | AP | 9 | An piece of home equipment, such as a dishwasher, washing machine, or refrigerator, pangram |
| 1 | CA | 6 | Dog family, or pointy tooth |
| 1 | CA | 10 | Large white kidney bean |
| 1 | CA | 9 | Pasta in the form of long, thin strands, only slightly thicker than angel hair, pangram |
| 1 | CE | 6 | Gluten intolerance disease |
| 1 | CE | 5 | Yo-Yo Ma’s instrument (also Pablo Casals') |
| 1 | CI | 5 | Short microscopic hairlike vibrating structure found in large numbers on the surface of certain cells; (anatomy) eyelash |
| 3 | CL | 6,8,9 | Medical facility (health …) |
| 1 | CL | 4 | Device to hold things together (paper or hair …) |
| 1 | EP | 4 | Long poem celebrating heroic feats, noun; or historically important, adj. (… struggle, … quest) |
| 1 | EP | 7 | Having characteristics of both sexes or no characteristics of either sex |
| 1 | IC | 6 | Frozen water spear formed from drips |
| 1 | IL | 5 | Hip bone |
| 1 | IN | 5 | Stupid, silly, ridiculous (… questions or comments); adj. |
| 1 | IN | 10 | Beginning to come into being or to become apparent, adj. |
| 1 | IN | 7 | Tend toward or feel favorably disposed toward, verb; or slope, noun |
| 1 | IN | 5 | Concave belly button, slang |
| 1 | IP | 6 | Medicinal syrup that induces vomiting, used to be used for poisonings |
| 2 | LA | 4,6 | Non-clerical |
| 1 | LA | 5 | Hawaiian porch or island |
| 1 | LA | 4 | Put something down |
| 1 | LE | 8 | Merciful, not strict (as a judge or parent, e.g.) |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Itchy hair parasites |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Bank hold on a mortgaged property, NOT tilt |
| 1 | LI | 5 | Purple flower or shade |
| 2 | LI | 4,6 | A queue, what you wait in for your turn |
| 1 | LI | 5 | Cloth napkin fabric |
| 1 | NA | 4 | Spike that’s hammered, noun/verb |
| 1 | NI | 6 | Vitamin B3 |
| 1 | NI | 4 | Pleasant in manner; or city in SE France |
| 1 | NI | 5 | Your sibling’s daughter |
| 1 | NI | 4 | Number of justices on Supreme Court |
| 1 | NI | 7 | Bowling variation with 1 target less than standard; compound |
| 1 | NI | 6 | Teat that babies suck on |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Bucket, NOT white-faced |
| 1 | PA | 4 | Sensation from an injury, noun/verb |
| 1 | PA | 5 | Lose your cool in a crisis (at the disco?) |
| 1 | PA | 6 | Toasted Italian sandwich |
| 2 | PA | 7,8 | Small rounded bump on body part such as tongue (from Latin) |
| 1 | PE | 7 | Large gregarious waterbird with a long bill and an extensible throat pouch for scooping up fish; or member of the New Orleans NBA team, pangram |
| 1 | PE | 8 | Similar to Spanish for "film," a protein film (on teeth & smoked meat, e.g.) |
| 1 | PE | 6 | Wooden writing tool with a graphite core |
| 1 | PE | 10 | Med from moldy blue cheese |
| 1 | PE | 6 | ♂ sex organ |
| 1 | PI | 4 | A printed type size, or medical condition that makes you want to eat non-foods |
| 1 | PI | 6 | Outdoor dining on a blanket (from a basket?), noun/verb (past tense is a pangram) |
| 1 | PI | 5 | Section of something larger (homophone of “tranquility” term), noun; or assemble (… together), verb |
| 1 | PI | 4 | Heap, stack (dirty laundry, raked leaves, etc.), noun/verb |
| 1 | PI | 4 | Tablet of medicine |
| 1 | PI | 4 | Evergreen tree with cones, noun; or to long for, verb |
| 1 | PI | 6 | Gland that makes melatonin |
| 1 | PI | 9 | Tropical fruit with yellow flesh, segmented skin, and stiff leaves (major crop of Hawaii) |
| 1 | PI | 8 | The very top, pangram |
| 1 | PI | 4 | Copper or plastic tube that carries water, noun; or to move liquid in one, verb; decorate a cake with icing |
| 1 | PI | 8 | Tube that transports oil & gas, compound |
| 1 | PI | 6 | Fosse musical about Charlemagne’s son, or apple variety |
| 1 | PL | 5 | Ordinary, unadorned, NOT a 747; adj. |
| 1 | PL | 4 | Ballét bénd |
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