- Letters: R/AILTVY
- Words: 52
- Points: 269
- 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 | AI | 6 | What you breathe |
| 1 | AI | 4 | Spacious, well-lit, & well-ventilated (room); or breezy (attitude); adj. |
| 1 | AL | 5 | Table or flat-topped block used as the focus for a religious ritual, especially for making sacrifices |
| 1 | AR | 4 | Opera solo |
| 1 | AR | 4 | Seed covering |
| 1 | AR | 5 | Ordered series, esp. math |
| 1 | AR | 7 | Get there; what you do at the end of a trip |
| 1 | AR | 4 | Creative activity: painting, music, literature, dance, etc |
| 2 | AT | 5,6 | Large open-air or skylight covered space surrounded by a building, common in ancient Roman houses; an upper cavity of the heart |
| 1 | AT | 5 | Flower oil for perfume |
| 1 | AV | 6 | Video game stand-in, or film set on Pandora |
| 1 | AV | 6 | Large cage, building, or enclosure for keeping birds; change 1st consonant in beehive collection |
| 1 | LA | 4 | Animal or criminal den |
| 1 | LA | 6 | Cowboy rope |
| 2 | LA | 5,6 | Immature insect stage |
| 1 | LI | 4 | Someone who doesn’t tell the truth |
| 1 | LI | 4 | ₺ or ₤, Turkish or old Italian $ |
| 1 | RA | 4 | What a train travels on, or what you hold on stairs |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Indian yogurt veg dip |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Mass meeting of people for a common cause (pep, political) |
| 1 | RA | 6 | Uncommon; steak served with red inside |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Sewer-dwelling rodent |
| 1 | RA | 7 | Machine gun sound |
| 1 | RA | 7 | Rodent hind appendage, fish, or hair style; or round file, compound |
| 1 | RA | 6 | Rapid succession of short, sharp knocking sounds, noun/verb; or make someone nervous, worried, or irritated |
| 1 | RI | 4 | $ in Iran, Oman, & Yemen |
| 1 | RI | 4 | Small stream |
| 2 | RI | 5,7 | Foe or competitor (sibling …-ry) |
| 1 | RI | 5 | $ in Saudi Arabia |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Dark, thick, flammable liquid distilled from wood or coal |
| 2 | TA | 4,6 | Open filled pastry, noun; or sharp taste, adj. |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Fish sauce, or tooth buildup |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Jeweled, ornamental ½ crown |
| 1 | TR | 5 | Forest path, noun; follow or fall behind, verb |
| 1 | TR | 5 | Characteristic, often genetically determined (left-handedness, e.g.) |
| 1 | TR | 7 | Painful or laborious ordeal, French for “work” |
| 1 | TR | 4 | Use it to carry drinks or a cafeteria meal |
| 1 | TR | 5 | Courtroom proceeding |
| 1 | TR | 5 | Vibratory sound, Star Trek symbiotic species (Dax, e.g.), or how Spanish people say “R” |
| 1 | TR | 6 | Insignificant facts (there are often contests), noun + adj. |
| 3 | TR | 7,9,10 | Unimportant, insignificant |
| 1 | VA | 4 | Differ in size, amount, degree, or nature (Your results may …), verb |
| 2 | VI | 7,8 | Relating to the flu, Covid–19, or an internet post that spreads like wildfire, adj. |
| 1 | VI | 8 | Having strength, energy, and a strong sex drive (typically said about a man) |
| 1 | VI | 5 | Pathogen that causes diseases such as colds, flu, or COVID; or harmful computer program that spreads across a network |
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