- Letters: N/ADIOTX
- Words: 40
- Points: 222
- 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. And if AI tries to be too helpful, try prefixing your search with "word for" or "word meaning".
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 | 1 | A | Math operation with plus (+) symbol, or new rooms that expand a house, adj. form is a pangram |
| 2 | 1 | A | Orange-red dye obtained from the pulp of a tropical fruit, used for coloring foods and fabric; also used as a condiment; or the tree it comes from (Bixa orellana) |
| 3 | 1 | A | Ceremonially smear someone with oil, or designate as a successor |
| 4 | 1 | A | Soon, poetically |
| 5 | 1 | A | Medical term for extreme element O starvation; a complete lack of O |
| 6 | 1 | A | Opposed to (prefix), NOT uncle’s wife's nickname |
| 7 | 1 | A | Succeed in getting, or reach; verb (… nirvana) |
| 8 | 1 | A | Long threadlike part of a nerve cell along which impulses are conducted from the cell body to other cells |
| 15 | 1 | A | Atom or molecule with a net electric charge |
| 23 | 1 | A | Write something, for example music, in a specialized system; or write comments in the margins of a book |
| 27 | 1 | A | Binary compound of element O with another element or group (rust is iron …), two noun forms and a negated noun form are pangrams |
| 36 | 1 | A | Poison (neuro-…), noun |
| 9 | 1 | D | Flintstones pet, or T. Rex family abbr. |
| 10 | 1 | D | Archaic word whose only surviving use is “by [means] of” (hard work) |
| 11 | 1 | D | Carcinogenic component of Agent Orange |
| 12 | 1 | D | Give to a good cause |
| 13 | 1 | I | Cause to begin, or admit into a secret society; verb; or novice, noun |
| 14 | 1 | I | Enter (go … the room), preposition |
| 34 | 1 | I | Character of sound, a sound (dial or ring-); noun; give greater strength or firmness to a body or a muscle; verb |
| 16 | 1 | N | Indiaan flaat breaad |
| 17 | 1 | N | Nothing, Spanish |
| 18 | 1 | N | Greek water nymph, or dragonfly larva |
| 19 | 1 | N | Grandma, slang; or Peter Pan dog |
| 20 | 1 | N | Swimming or floating adj. from Latin |
| 21 | 1 | N | Country, or temperance activist Carrie |
| 22 | 1 | N | 12:00, midday, 🕛 |
| 23 | 1 | N | Write something, for example music, in a specialized system; or write comments in the margins of a book |
| 24 | 1 | N | Vague idea, or small sewing accessory |
| 25 | 1 | O | Veg that makes you cry when cut (for some, this is the "dreaded root veg") |
| 26 | 1 | O | Preposition when mounting an animal or boarding a large vehicle |
| 27 | 2 | O | Binary compound of element O with another element or group (rust is iron …), two noun forms and a negated noun form are pangrams |
| 28 | 1 | T | Smear of corruption or pollution, noun/verb |
| 29 | 1 | T | Brown chemical in tea & wine used to preserve leather, noun |
| 30 | 1 | T | Compulsory contribution to state revenue, noun/verb |
| 31 | 1 | T | Group of any rank, such as a species, family, or class (biology) |
| 32 | 1 | T | Shade of color, noun; or darken car windows, verb |
| 33 | 1 | T | Pre-Olympic god, largest Saturn moon, or industry bigwig |
| 35 | 1 | T | Animated film or character, slang abbr. (car…) |
| 36 | 1 | T | Poison (neuro-…), noun |
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 social media.
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