- Letters: O/ADEHPT
- Words: 58
- Points: 252
- 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, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | AD | 5,7,7 | Legally take responsibility for someone else's child; choose to take up, follow, or use |
| 1 | AT | 4 | Opposite of bottom |
| 1 | DE | 5 | Place to store large quantities of equipment or food; or a railroad or bus station |
| 1 | DO | 4 | Extinct bird; or stupid person, slang |
| 1 | DO | 6 | Thingamajig, slang; ends in “father” nickname |
| 2 | DO | 4,5 | Simpleton, or slang for drugs |
| 1 | DO | 6 | Small round mark, noun/verb (… the i's and cross the t's) |
| 2 | DO | 4,5 | Be uncritically fond (she …s on her grandkids) |
| 2 | DO | 4,5 | Third person singular present of do (archaic) |
| 1 | EP | 5 | Form of lyric poem written in couplets, in which a long line is followed by a shorter one, from Greek |
| 1 | HO | 4 | Use a long-handled gardening tool with a thin metal blade |
| 2 | HO | 4,6 | “Little Red Riding …” noggin covering |
| 1 | HO | 6 | Column of weathered rocks, or black magic; rhyming word |
| 2 | HO | 4,6 | O you jump through or spin around your waist (hula …) |
| 2 | HO | 4,6 | Owl sound, noun/verb |
| 1 | HO | 6 | Move by jumping on one foot |
| 2 | HO | 4,5 | Fervently wish (I … it doesn’t rain today) |
| 2 | HO | 7,9 | Someone who gets angry easily, compound |
| 1 | HO | 6 | Asian dish similar to fondue; AKA steamboat, compound |
| 1 | OA | 4 | Vow or pledge (you’re under one in court testimony) |
| 1 | OP | 5 | Make a choice from a range of possibilities (he …ed for the red one) |
| 1 | PE | 6 | Outer shell of small green spherical veggies, usually 2 words |
| 1 | PH | 5 | Picture made using a camera: short form is more common in the Bee, long form is a pangram |
| 1 | PO | 4 | Author of verse |
| 1 | PO | 4 | Christopher Robbins’ Winnie The … Bear |
| 2 | PO | 4,6 | Tire out (I’m …ed); or defecate, slang verb/noun |
| 1 | PO | 6 | Make a light explosive sound (… the cork, … the question) |
| 1 | PO | 4 | Leo, Francis, Pius, etc. (head of Roman Catholic Church) |
| 1 | PO | 5 | Daddy |
| 1 | PO | 6 | (Historical or British) sweet or pretty child, or voodoo doll |
| 1 | PO | 6 | Large container for cooking (…s and pans); or container for growing plants, noun/verb; or marijuana, slang |
| 1 | PO | 6 | Spud |
| 1 | PO | 7 | Heavy marijuana user, slang, compound pangram |
| 2 | TA | 6,8 | Skin “ink” |
| 1 | TE | 6 | Vessel for heating water to pour on crushed Camellia sinensis leaves to make a hot drink, compound (I'm a little …, short and stout) |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Frog cousin |
| 1 | TO | 4 | Appendage at the front of your foot (most have five per foot) |
| 2 | TO | 4,6 | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
| 2 | TO | 5,7 | What you chew with |
| 1 | TO | 6 | Opposite of bottom |
| 2 | TO | 4,5 | Small grayish slender-bodied shark, or mango tree grove, noun; or archaic term for drink alcohol to excess, verb; homophone of grayish-brown color |
| 2 | TO | 4,5 | Reusable bag, noun; or schlep, verb |
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