- Letters: T/ABILNY
- Words: 49
- Points: 262
- 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 | AB | 7 | Having the power, skill, means, or opportunity to do something, adj. (She was … to walk at 14 months), negated noun form is a pangram |
| 1 | AL | 4 | Illumination, noun/verb (Let there be …) |
| 1 | AN | 4 | Opposed to (prefix), NOT uncle’s wife's nickname |
| 2 | AT | 6,13 | Succeed in getting, or reach; verb (… nirvana), noun form is a pangram |
| 1 | AT | 5 | Move into a sloping position, or fight windmills (… at) |
| 1 | BA | 4 | (Put a) worm on a fishing hook; verb/noun |
| 1 | BA | 8 | Unoriginal, dull, noun form is a pangram |
| 1 | BA | 5 | What you use to hit the ball in games such as baseball or cricket; flying mammal |
| 1 | BL | 4 | Make a sound like a sheep, goat, or calf; slang |
| 2 | BL | 7,9 | Bad behavior, open and unashamed |
| 1 | IN | 9 | Having the power, skill, means, or opportunity to do something, adj. (She was … to walk at 14 months), negated noun form is a pangram |
| 1 | IN | 7 | Stupid, silly, ridiculous (… questions or comments); adj. |
| 2 | IN | 7,9 | First (letter, as in J.R.R. Tolkien) |
| 1 | IT | 4 | Really small, slang; usually paired with rhyming B word |
| 1 | LA | 8 | Easily and frequently altered; unstable |
| 1 | LA | 5 | Non-clerical |
| 1 | LA | 7 | Tropical perennial flowering plant in the verbena family |
| 1 | LI | 9 | Responsible by law/legally answerable; likely to do something (he's ... to get upset) |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Singsong accent |
| 2 | LI | 4,5 | Dryer fluff |
| 1 | LI | 6 | Tedious series of complaints |
| 2 | NA | 5,8 | Latin adj. relating to place or time of birth |
| 1 | NA | 6 | Swimming or floating adj. from Latin |
| 2 | NA | 5,7 | Well dressed, adj. |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Striped cat with a distinctive M on its forehead |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Indian small drum pair; NOT dining room furniture |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Dogs wag this hind appendage |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Smear of corruption or pollution, noun/verb |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Of greater than average height, adj. |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Fringed prayer shawl |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Add up (keep a running …, or …–Ho! The quarry is in sight) |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Ankle bone |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Brown chemical in tea & wine used to preserve leather, noun |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Worn & shabby, or of poor quality; Scottish |
| 2 | TI | 5,6 | Shin bone |
| 1 | TI | 4 | Cash register or drawer, noun; “up to,” preposition; or prep soil for planting, verb |
| 1 | TI | 4 | Move into a sloping position, or fight windmills (… at) |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Silvery-white metal, atomic number 50 (Cat on a Hot … Roof) |
| 1 | TI | 4 | Shade of color, noun; or darken car windows, verb |
| 2 | TI | 4,6 | Very small, adj., “Christmas Carol” kid |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Pre-Olympic god, largest Saturn moon, or industry bigwig |
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