- Letters: M/AFGINR
- Words: 56
- Points: 320
- 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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| root # | answers covered | answer's first letter | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | A | “Swear” alternative in an oath, gerund form is a pangram |
| 2 | 1 | A | Point at a target |
| 3 | 1 | A | Flying ♂, compound |
| 4 | 2 | A | Word made by re-arranging the letters of another word, noun/verb |
| 5 | 1 | A | Jungian term for inner ♀ part of ♂ |
| 6 | 1 | A | What connects your hand to your shoulder, noun; or give weapons to someone, verb/noun |
| 7 | 2 | F | Place for growing crops, noun/verb, gerund form is a pangram |
| 8 | 2 | F | Hard (tofu) or unmoving, adj./verb |
| 9 | 1 | F | Case or border enclosing a mirror or picture, noun/verb; make someone appear guilty of something they did not do, verb, gerund form is a pangram |
| 10 | 1 | G | Competitive form of play (poker, soccer, Scrabble, etc.) |
| 11 | 1 | G | Archaic word for a ♂ street urchin, from French |
| 12 | 1 | G | Γ, γ (3rd Greek letter), & shortest-length EM radiation (… rays) |
| 13 | 1 | G | Metric mass unit, equal to the mass of one cc of water |
| 14 | 2 | G | System of structure rules for a language |
| 15 | 1 | G | Your parent's Mom (informal) |
| 16 | 1 | G | Forbidding, uninviting, humorless, depressing |
| 17 | 1 | I | Picture or other representation of a person or thing (mirror … is that thing reversed), or public perception of a celebrity or company (polish their…), noun/verb |
| 18 | 1 | I | Form a mental picture or concept; or John Lennon's 1971 album and title song |
| 19 | 1 | I | Prayer leader at mosque |
| 20 | 2 | I | Not physically or mentally strong, especially through age or illness |
| 21 | 1 | M | The Italian Mob |
| 22 | 1 | M | The 3 biblical wise ♂, Latin plural |
| 23 | 1 | M | Hot fluid below Earth’s crust; lava before it’s erupted |
| 24 | 2 | M | Permanently injure |
| 25 | 1 | M | Primary (Street), adj. |
| 26 | 2 | M | ♀ parent, slang |
| 27 | 1 | M | Adult ♂ |
| 28 | 1 | M | Administer (she got promoted to …ment) |
| 29 | 1 | M | Japanese graphic novels |
| 30 | 1 | M | Craze, noun (Beatle-…) |
| 31 | 1 | M | Exodus food from the sky |
| 32 | 1 | M | Synonym for disfigure |
| 33 | 1 | M | Edge or border, noun/verb |
| 34 | 1 | M | Place to tie up boats |
| 35 | 1 | M | Tomato pasta sauce |
| 36 | 1 | M | Old-timey schoolteacher honorific |
| 37 | 2 | M | Annoy slightly, verb (it’s usually an –ED adj.) |
| 38 | 1 | M | Silent performer |
| 39 | 1 | M | Where you dig for ore, or anti-ship bomb |
| 40 | 1 | M | Smaller version (as in Cooper car), slang abbr. |
| 41 | 1 | M | 1/60 dram, UK music ½ note, or calligraphy short vertical stroke |
| 42 | 1 | M | Smallest amount (the … bet at this table is $100) |
| 43 | 1 | M | Stretch of swampy ground, noun; or cause to be stuck in mud, verb; or figuratively, involve someone in a difficult situation that's hard to get out of, verb/noun |
| 44 | 1 | M | Sweet Japanese cooking wine made from fermented rice |
| 45 | 1 | N | What you’re called (Kevin or Susan, e.g.) |
| 46 | 1 | R | Male sheep, noun; or roughly force something into place, verb/noun; or crash into something (the way male sheep fight) |
| 47 | 1 | R | The edge of a bowl or crater, noun; or act as an outer edge for something, 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