- Letters: N/AELMTY
- Words: 70
- Points: 350
- Pangrams: 2
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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 | Prayer-ending word |
| 2 | 1 | A | Yearly record book |
| 3 | 1 | A | Heat then cool metal or glass slowly to toughen it |
| 4 | 1 | A | $ to join a poker game, or “before” prefix |
| 5 | 1 | A | Before birth; usually written as PRE–... |
| 6 | 2 | A | It picks up TV or radio signals |
| 7 | 2 | A | Opening at the end of the alimentary canal through which solid waste matter leaves the body, adj. form also means uptight |
| 8 | 1 | E | Consume food |
| 9 | 1 | E | Énérgy, stylé, énthusiasm; from Frénch |
| 10 | 3 | E | The periodic table is full of these (singular), adv. form is a pangram |
| 11 | 1 | E | Flow or originate from (warmth from a fireplace, e.g.) |
| 12 | 1 | E | Opaque or semitransparent glassy substance applied to hard surfaces for ornament or as a protective coating; or the hard coating your teeth have |
| 13 | 1 | E | Rectal wash (Fleet, e.g.) |
| 14 | 1 | E | Wartime foe |
| 15 | 1 | E | Friendly understanding between countries (French) |
| 16 | 1 | L | Song or poem expressing grief or sorrow, noun/verb |
| 17 | 1 | L | Small road (Beatles’ Penny … or Superman’s Lois …) |
| 18 | 1 | L | Tropical perennial flowering plant in the verbena family |
| 19 | 1 | L | Running behind (I’m … for class), or deceased (The … Charles Grodin) |
| 20 | 2 | L | Capable of emerging, developing, or becoming active in the future (a … fingerprint) |
| 21 | 2 | L | Non-ordained or amateur ♂ (“In …’s terms”) |
| 22 | 3 | L | Not fatty (… meat), adj.; or incline (… back in your chair) |
| 23 | 1 | L | Pre–Easter holiday when you give up meat, noun; or “borrowed” counterpart, verb |
| 24 | 1 | M | Adult ♂ |
| 25 | 1 | M | Florida creature AKA “sea cow” |
| 26 | 1 | M | Hair on a horse or ♂ lion’s neck |
| 27 | 1 | M | Exodus food from the sky |
| 28 | 1 | M | Ray (fish) |
| 29 | 1 | M | Shelf above a fireplace, where stockings traditionally hang at Christmas |
| 30 | 1 | M | The layer between the earth's crust and core |
| 31 | 1 | M | More than a few (… people are saying) |
| 32 | 4 | M | The average in math, noun; unkind, adj. (“… Girls”); or intend (I didn’t … to do it) |
| 33 | 2 | M | Relating to the mind (He has … health issues), adv. form is a pangram |
| 34 | 1 | M | Experienced and trusted adviser, usually an older person |
| 35 | 1 | M | Talking starling that’s often a pet |
| 36 | 1 | N | Indiaan flaat breaad |
| 37 | 2 | N | What you’re called (Kevin or Susan, e.g.) |
| 38 | 1 | N | Grandma, slang; or Peter Pan dog |
| 39 | 1 | N | ♀ goat, or nursemaid |
| 40 | 1 | N | Latin adj. relating to place or time of birth |
| 41 | 1 | N | Swimming or floating adj. from Latin |
| 42 | 1 | N | Well dressed, adj. |
| 43 | 3 | N | Tidy |
| 44 | 1 | N | Hawaiian goose & state bird |
| 45 | 1 | N | “Stinging” plant, noun; or to annoy, verb |
| 46 | 1 | N | UK outhouse, slang; or butterfly & fish mesh catcher adj. |
| 47 | 1 | T | Natural aptitude or skill (…show) |
| 48 | 1 | T | Adolescent (…ager), or numbers 13–19 |
| 49 | 1 | T | Minuscule, or trendy youth (…-bopper) |
| 50 | 1 | T | Person a landlord rents to, one of two or more of these is a pangram |
| 51 | 1 | T | Set of rooms within a house, or cheap multi-family bldg. |
| 52 | 1 | T | A principle or belief; or a Christopher Nolan time-travel film |
| 53 | 1 | T | Shelter you sleep in while camping |
| 54 | 2 | Y | Matchmaker or gossip, Yiddish |
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