- Letters: I/ACMNTY
- Words: 51
- Points: 238
- 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 letter | answer's length | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A | 6 | African or Australian wattle tree |
| 1 | A | 4 | Trendy smoothie berry |
| 1 | A | 5 | Friendly relationship (esp. between nations) |
| 1 | A | 5 | Jungian term for inner ♀ part of ♂ |
| 1 | A | 4 | Opposed to (prefix), NOT uncle’s wife's nickname |
| 1 | A | 5 | Childish or playful tomfoolery, usually plural |
| 1 | A | 6 | Succeed in getting, or reach; verb (… nirvana) |
| 1 | A | 5 | Unfinished room below roof; garret |
| 1 | C | 5 | Succulent plant with a thick stem that usually has spines, lacks leaves, and occasionally has brilliantly colored flowers |
| 1 | C | 6 | Alligator with name similar to, or same as, British Caribbean islands (George Town) |
| 1 | C | 4 | ♀ sleeveless undergarment top, slang abbr. |
| 1 | C | 7 | Mexican or Spanish bar, or the Mos Eisley bar on Tatooine in “Star Wars” |
| 1 | C | 7 | Alt name for plant that drives felines wild, compound made from feline + breath candy |
| 1 | C | 4 | Large town (NY, LA, Chicago, etc.) |
| 1 | C | 5 | Doubter, pessimist |
| 1 | I | 4 | Prayer leader at mosque |
| 1 | I | 7 | Stupid, silly, ridiculous (… questions or comments); adj. |
| 1 | I | 6 | Recite a spell or a prayer; chant or intone, verb, usually occurs in its -ation noun form |
| 1 | I | 6 | Not damaged or impaired in any way; complete (I left with my dignity …), adj. |
| 1 | I | 8 | Extremely close & personal (… apparel), noun form is a pangram |
| 1 | I | 4 | Really small, slang; usually paired with rhyming B word |
| 1 | M | 4 | Permanently injure |
| 1 | M | 4 | Primary (Street), adj. |
| 1 | M | 8 | Keep up (appearances), or support; verb |
| 3 | M | 5,5,6 | Craze, noun (Beatle-…) |
| 1 | M | 4 | Flaky rock that breaks off in sheets |
| 1 | M | 5 | Parrot someone’s speaking & mannerisms, verb; or the person doing it, noun |
| 1 | M | 4 | Smaller version (as in Cooper car), slang abbr. |
| 1 | M | 7 | small, handheld device for taking movies |
| 1 | M | 5 | 1/60 dram, UK music ½ note, or calligraphy short vertical stroke |
| 1 | M | 6 | Smallest amount (the … bet at this table is $100) |
| 2 | M | 4,5 | Breath candy or its flavor or plant source, noun; or create coins, verb |
| 1 | M | 4 | Catcher’s glove, or former Sen. Romney |
| 1 | N | 6 | Vitamin B3 |
| 1 | N | 5 | Foolish or silly person |
| 1 | T | 5 | Understood without being stated (… agreement), adj. |
| 2 | T | 6,9 | Action planned to achieve a specific end (negotiating …) |
| 1 | T | 5 | Smear of corruption or pollution, noun/verb |
| 2 | T | 6,6 | Brown chemical in tea & wine used to preserve leather, noun |
| 1 | T | 6 | Japanese & dojo floor mats (畳) |
| 1 | T | 5 | Silvery-white metal, atomic number 50 (Cat on a Hot … Roof), noun; or the process of coating another metal with this, verb |
| 1 | T | 5 | Archaic for shade of color, seen now only in “–URE of iodine” |
| 1 | T | 4 | Shade of color, noun; or darken car windows, verb |
| 1 | T | 4 | Very small, adj., “Christmas Carol” kid |
| 2 | T | 5,7 | 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