- Letters: G/ACDEHN
- Words: 35
- Points: 163
- 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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| root # | answers covered | answer's first letter | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | A | Saying or maxim (the old …) |
| 2 | 1 | A | How old you are, noun; or grow older, verb; or period of history, noun |
| 3 | 1 | A | List of items to be discussed at a meeting, noun |
| 4 | 2 | C | Get something without paying for it (slang) |
| 5 | 2 | C | Barred enclosure, or actor Nicolas |
| 6 | 2 | C | Make something different (… your mind, … your clothes), or loose coins (spare …), past tense is a pangram |
| 7 | 1 | D | Mild cuss (just get the … thing working!); euphemism for “condemn to Hell” expletive |
| 5 | 2 | E | Barred enclosure, or actor Nicolas |
| 8 | 2 | E | A border or outer boundary, or to provide one; win by a narrow margin |
| 9 | 1 | E | Archaic exclamation of surprise |
| 10 | 1 | E | What baby birds hatch from, noun; or throw those things at a house or car, verb; or encourage someone to do something, usually something dumb, verb |
| 11 | 2 | E | A person who is highly academic or studious; slang compound made from what gets scrambled for breakfast + topmost body part |
| 12 | 2 | E | Commit to marry (with an …-ment ring) |
| 13 | 1 | G | go around from one place to another, in the pursuit of pleasure or entertainment |
| 14 | 1 | G | Choke or retch, verb; or material placed over someone's mouth to prevent them from speaking or crying out, noun/verb |
| 15 | 1 | G | Super enthusiastic; Biden inauguration National Anthem singer |
| 16 | 1 | G | Chocolate & cream icing |
| 17 | 2 | G | Group of thugs ("Working on the Chain …"), noun/verb |
| 18 | 1 | G | Measuring dial (fuel …) |
| 19 | 1 | G | DNA sequence that determines traits, or singing cowboy Autry |
| 20 | 1 | G | Indian clarified butter |
| 21 | 2 | H | What you do to a painting you want to mount on a wall, or to a criminal sentenced to the gallows |
| 22 | 2 | H | Shrub fence, noun; or limit (… your bets) |
| 23 | 1 | H | Prehistoric circular monument (Stone…) |
| 24 | 1 | N | Annoy or irritate with persistent fault-finding or continuous urging |
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