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. The TL;DR about the site comes after the table.
Past clues are available here
Table content
| words | root 1st letter | clue |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | A | Do something |
| 1 | A | Insurance risk analyst |
| 1 | A | Cause a machine to start up, or motivate a person |
| 1 | A | Main blood pipe from heart |
| 1 | A | Creative activity: painting, music, literature, dance, etc |
| 1 | A | Flower oil for perfume |
| 2 | A | Entice, lure, or evoke (…attention; opposites…), verb |
| 1 | A | Car, abbr., or “self” prefix |
| 2 | A | Dictator with absolute power |
| 1 | C | Unit of weight for gems, NOT bunny food |
| 1 | C | Orange veg that bunnies eat |
| 1 | C | Prepared food you take home |
| 1 | C | Shopping trolley you push |
| 1 | C | Furry pet that purrs |
| 1 | C | Eye cloudiness, or waterfall |
| 1 | C | Outdoor jacket (trench-...) |
| 1 | C | Foolish old ♂, or water bird |
| 1 | C | Where trials are held |
| 1 | C | Keeper or custodian of a collection |
| 1 | C | Rudely brief, adj. |
| 1 | C | Cardboard person (how you make one), or spy intermediary |
| 1 | O | Grain that is Quaker's specialty |
| 2 | O | Make a speech |
| 1 | O | Strong public disapproval or anger |
| 1 | O | Closing show music (antonym begins with IN–) |
| 1 | R | Sewer-dwelling rodent |
| 1 | R | Machine gun sound |
| 1 | R | Plant anchor that sucks up water |
| 1 | R | Phone with dial, adj., or int’l service org (..Club) |
| 2 | R | Move in a circle around an axis or center |
| 1 | R | Device or blade that spins |
| 1 | R | Disorderly retreat, or decisive defeat |
| 1 | R | Long deep track made by the repeated passage of the wheels of vehicles |
| 1 | T | Mexican filled tortilla, or “...Bell” restaurant |
| 1 | T | Diplomacy, sensitivity |
| 1 | T | Dark, thick, flammable liquid distilled from wood or coal |
| 1 | T | Asian veg that sounds like next word |
| 1 | T | Fortunetelling cards |
| 1 | T | Open filled pastry, noun; or sharp taste, adj. |
| 1 | T | Fish sauce, or tooth buildup |
| 1 | T | Skin “ink” |
| 1 | T | Worn & shabby, or of poor quality; Scottish |
| 1 | T | Not slack, as a rope, adj. |
| 1 | T | Virtuoso musical piece (Bach’s “...& Fugue in D Minor”) |
| 1 | T | Short horn sound; noun/verb |
| 1 | T | Bull, Spanish |
| 1 | T | Legal wrong, NOT pastry |
| 1 | T | Take a guided one of these in a foreign city (on a ...bus?) |
| 1 | T | Promote, or offer horse racing tips |
| 1 | T | Large land area, or body passage (“digestive…”) |
| 1 | T | Farm vehicle for towing |
| 1 | T | Use it to carry drinks |
| 1 | T | Fast walking pace for horses or people |
| 1 | T | Common game fish (rainbow…, e.g.) |
| 1 | T | Helen of “The Iliad” home, or oz. for gold & gems |
| 1 | T | Audition, test for someone hoping to join a team |
| 1 | T | Private instructor |
| 1 | T | Ballet skirt, or S Afr Bishop Desmond |
| 1 | T | Newbie, from Latin “recruit” |
| 1 | Y | Circular tent of felt or skins |
This site provides clues for a day's New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle. It exists to make it easier for Kevin Davis to take a day off. Most of the clues come from him. There may be some startup problems, but long term I think I can put the clues together with no more than half an hour's work.
The "Bee Roots" approach is to provide explicit clues for root words, not every word. This is similar to what Kevin Davis does, but without information about parts of speech 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.
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
Many thanks to Kevin Davis, whose 4,500-word clue list made this possible.