- Letters: T/ABCDIR
- Words: 42
- Points: 218
- 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 | AD | 6 | Someone who’s hooked on drugs |
| 1 | AR | 6 | North Pole adj. (… Circle or Ocean) |
| 1 | AT | 5 | 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 | AT | 5 | Unfinished room below roof; garret |
| 1 | AT | 7 | Entice, lure, or evoke (… attention; opposites …), verb |
| 1 | BA | 8 | Card game of 2- or 3-card hands, in which the winner has the highest remainder when its face value is divided by ten |
| 1 | BA | 4 | (Put a) worm on a fishing hook; verb/noun |
| 1 | BA | 9 | Branch of medicine that deals with the study and treatment of obesity |
| 1 | BR | 4 | Badly behaved child; or a type of sausage (…wurst) |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Succulent plant with a thick stem that usually has spines, lacks leaves, and occasionally has brilliantly colored flowers |
| 1 | CA | 5 | Unit of weight for gems, NOT bunny food |
| 1 | CA | 4 | Shopping trolley you push |
| 1 | CA | 8 | Eye cloudiness, or waterfall |
| 1 | CA | 7 | Flying feathered creature with a call that sounds like a feline, compound pangram |
| 1 | CI | 8 | Italian “slipper” bread |
| 1 | CI | 6 | Tree genus that includes lemon, lime, orange, and grapefruit, or the fruit of those trees |
| 1 | CR | 6 | Fault-finder (“everyone’s a …”), or arts & dining reviewer |
| 1 | DA | 4 | Spike thrown at a board |
| 1 | DA | 4 | Facts & stats, computer info, or Star Trek Next Gen android |
| 1 | DI | 9 | Accent or other pronunciation mark on a letter, NOT a fault-finder |
| 1 | DI | 5 | (Usually singular) formal pronouncements, or adages, Latin plural |
| 2 | DI | 6,8 | Person over-inclined to instruct others |
| 1 | DI | 4 | Soil |
| 1 | DR | 4 | Mild exclamation of annoyance used by cartoon villains, anagram of spike thrown at board |
| 1 | RA | 6 | Gregarious, plant-eating mammal with long ears, long hind legs, and a short tail (famous ones include Bugs and Roger) |
| 1 | RA | 5 | Indian yogurt veg dip |
| 1 | RA | 7 | Machine gun sound |
| 1 | RI | 6 | What a frog says (I'm not kidding - it's really a Spelling Bee word) |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Sleeveless jerkin consisting only of front and back pieces with a hole for the head |
| 1 | TA | 5 | Understood without being stated (… agreement), adj. |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Diplomacy, sensitivity |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Action planned to achieve a specific end (negotiating …) |
| 1 | TA | 4 | Open filled pastry, noun; or sharp taste, adj. |
| 1 | TA | 6 | Fish sauce, or tooth buildup |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Jeweled, ornamental ½ crown |
| 1 | TI | 5 | Shin bone |
| 1 | TI | 6 | Small piece of tasty food or gossip |
| 1 | TR | 5 | Large land area, or body passage (“digestive …”) |
| 1 | TR | 5 | Characteristic, often genetically determined (left-handedness, e.g.) |
| 1 | TR | 5 | Group of 3 |
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