- Letters: I/ADLMNO
- Words: 65
- Points: 286
- 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 | 5 | Back office staff, slang abbr. |
| 1 | A | 5 | Garlic mayonnaise, from French for garlic |
| 1 | A | 4 | Surrounded by, preposition |
| 1 | A | 5 | Protein building block acid, or a NH₂ group, noun |
| 1 | A | 7 | Smelly cleaning fluid, NH₃ |
| 1 | A | 5 | Slang abbr. for a prenatal test that takes fluid from a uterus with a needle, noun |
| 1 | A | 5 | Jungian term for inner ♀ part of ♂ |
| 1 | A | 6 | Not a mineral or a veg |
| 1 | A | 5 | Atom or molecule with a net electric charge |
| 1 | D | 4 | What you turn on a rotary phone or radio knob (don't touch that …!) |
| 1 | D | 7 | Shape of a baseball field, or sparkly gem, noun |
| 1 | D | 5 | Phallus-shaped sex toy |
| 1 | D | 4 | Pickle spice |
| 1 | D | 4 | Flintstones pet, or T. Rex family abbr. |
| 1 | D | 6 | Area of territory owned or controlled by a ruler or government (eminent …), noun |
| 1 | D | 8 | Sovereign authority over a country or people (Canada was a … from 1867 to 1951) |
| 1 | D | 6 | Spotted game tile (“bones”) |
| 1 | I | 5 | Slang phrase particular to a language (“raining cats & dogs”), noun |
| 1 | I | 4 | Punk rocker Billy; “American …” TV singing contest; or public figure you worship (…-ize) |
| 1 | I | 4 | Prayer leader at mosque |
| 1 | I | 6 | Not on the coast |
| 1 | I | 6 | Decorate something by embedding pieces of a different material in it, flush with its surface, compound |
| 1 | L | 6 | Thin layer of rock, tissue, or other material (think of coating an ID in plastic, without the –TE) |
| 1 | L | 7 | Phonetic term for consonant formed with tip of tongue just behind teeth (add a consonant to above) |
| 1 | L | 5 | Hawaiian porch or island |
| 1 | L | 7 | Sheep (wool) oil, used as skin moisturizer |
| 2 | L | 4,4 | Put something down |
| 1 | L | 4 | Peru capital, or bean |
| 1 | L | 7 | Occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold |
| 1 | L | 4 | (Literary verb) represent by image or words, or outline or highlight |
| 1 | L | 4 | Chauffeured, stretched car, slang abbr. |
| 1 | L | 4 | Roaring animal that travels in a pride (… King) |
| 1 | L | 4 | Sex organ region of body (fruit of my …s); anagram of “… King” animal |
| 1 | M | 4 | 8 of them were milking in a Xmas carol |
| 1 | M | 4 | Letters you get or send |
| 1 | M | 7 | ♂ letter carrier, compound |
| 1 | M | 4 | Permanently injure |
| 1 | M | 4 | Primary (Street), adj. |
| 1 | M | 8 | Largest part of a country or continent, not including the islands around it, compound |
| 1 | M | 9 | Vertebrate class that has hair, milk, & live birth |
| 1 | M | 8 | Lute-like musical instrument, with paired metal strings, pangram (Rod Stewart's "… Wind"; featured instrument on "Maggie May") |
| 2 | M | 5,9 | Craze, noun (Beatle-…) |
| 1 | M | 6 | Capital of the Philippines, or brown paper |
| 1 | M | 4 | Computer music protocol, calf-length skirt, or noon in French |
| 1 | M | 7 | Central part of a country |
| 1 | M | 4 | Not severe (a … case of the flu), or gentle (Clark Kent, the …-mannered reporter) |
| 1 | M | 4 | Wheat or pepper grinder |
| 1 | M | 7 | 1 followed by 6 zeroes, ordinal form is a pangram |
| 1 | M | 4 | Intention (I changed my …), noun; or dislike (I don’t … a little rain) or heed (… your manners), verb |
| 1 | M | 4 | Smaller version (as in Cooper car), slang abbr. |
| 1 | M | 5 | 1/60 dram, UK music ½ note, or calligraphy short vertical stroke |
| 2 | M | 6,7 | Smallest amount (the … bet at this table is $100) |
| 1 | M | 6 | Underling, as seen in “Despicable Me” |
| 1 | M | 4 | To work hard (archaic); homophone of bris snipper |
| 1 | M | 8 | In math, polynomial with only one term |
| 1 | N | 5 | Greek water nymph, or dragonfly larva |
| 1 | N | 4 | Spike that’s hammered, noun/verb |
| 1 | N | 7 | Existing in name only; or a price far below the real value or cost (… fee) |
| 1 | N | 9 | 1 followed 30 zeroes; Latin 9 prefix |
| 1 | O | 6 | ♂ who works in the petroleum industry |
| 1 | O | 4 | Mixture, or spicy Spanish stew, NOT margarine |
| 1 | O | 5 | Veg that makes you cry when cut (for some, this is the "dreaded root veg") |
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