- Letters: C/AHINTY
- Words: 56
- Points: 259
- 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 | AC | 6 | African or Australian wattle tree |
| 1 | AC | 4 | Trendy smoothie berry |
| 1 | AC | 4 | Muscle, heart, tooth, or tummy dull pain |
| 1 | AN | 5 | Childish or playful tomfoolery, usually plural |
| 1 | AT | 6 | Fasten 2 things together, noun form is a pangram |
| 1 | AT | 5 | Unfinished room below roof; garret |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Succulent plant with a thick stem that usually has spines, lacks leaves, and occasionally has brilliantly colored flowers |
| 1 | CA | 6 | Leggy French dance |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Tropical “lily” |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Shrewd; or soup tin adj. |
| 1 | CA | 4 | Tilt, or “I am unable to do so” contraction; hypocritical and sanctimonious talk |
| 1 | CA | 7 | Medium-length narrative music for voice & instruments, from Italian for “sung” |
| 1 | CA | 7 | Mexican or Spanish bar, or the Mos Eisley bar on Tatooine in “Star Wars” |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Furry pet that purrs |
| 2 | CA | 5,6 | Intercept & hold (a fish, a thrown ball, e.g.) |
| 1 | CH | 4 | Spiced Indian tea (… latte) |
| 1 | CH | 5 | String of metal links |
| 1 | CH | 6 | Possibility (there’s a small …) or serendipity (they met by …), noun; or take a risk, verb |
| 1 | CH | 5 | Repeated rhythmic phrase (Gregorian …), or to recite one |
| 2 | CH | 4,6 | Informal conversation, noun or verb (online … room, group …) |
| 1 | CH | 4 | Faddish “pet” mint plant |
| 1 | CH | 7 | Dry red wine, originally produced in Tuscany |
| 1 | CH | 4 | Fashionable |
| 1 | CH | 5 | Girl, Spanish |
| 1 | CH | 6 | Pretentious style (or almost 2x fashionable) |
| 1 | CH | 4 | Bottom of face, noun; or raise it above a bar in a pull-up, verb |
| 1 | CH | 5 | Large Asian country, or ceramics from there |
| 1 | CH | 4 | IOU note, Navy memo |
| 1 | CH | 8 | Idle small talk; slang compound noun/verb |
| 1 | CH | 6 | Fibrous substance forming the exoskeleton of arthropods |
| 1 | CI | 5 | Easy task (it’s a …), noun; or tighten up (belt or saddle, e.g.), verb |
| 1 | CI | 4 | Large town (NY, LA, Chicago, etc.) |
| 1 | CY | 4 | Greenish-blue (ink cartridge) |
| 1 | CY | 5 | Doubter, pessimist |
| 1 | HA | 5 | Emerge from an egg, verb |
| 1 | HI | 5 | “Psycho” director Alfred nickname, or slang for thumb a ride, verb; or device on a vehicle that allows it to attach a trailer, noun |
| 1 | HY | 8 | Main character in “Keeping Up Appearances” BBC sitcom, or flowering plant; pangram |
| 1 | IN | 6 | Recite a spell or a prayer; chant or intone, verb, usually occurs in its -ation noun form |
| 1 | IN | 4 | 1/12 of a foot, noun; or move slowly, verb |
| 1 | IN | 6 | Not damaged or impaired in any way; complete (I left with my dignity …), adj. |
| 2 | IT | 4,5 | What you scratch (an …) |
| 1 | NA | 5 | Of course, as may be expected; slang abbr. |
| 1 | NI | 6 | Vitamin B3 |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Dashboard engine RPM gauge abbr. |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Understood without being stated (… agreement), adj. |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Diplomacy, sensitivity |
| 2 | TA | 6,9 | Action planned to achieve a specific end (negotiating …) |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Brown chemical in tea & wine used to preserve leather, noun |
| 1 | TH | 6 | Straw roof covering |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Archaic for shade of color, seen now only in “–URE of iodine” |
| 1 | TI | 7 | Pre-Olympic god, largest Saturn moon, or industry bigwig |
| 1 | YA | 5 | Rich person’s boat, or a racing sailboat (America’s Cup) |
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