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 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A | Criminal’s excuse |
| 2 | A | Extraterrestrial (“In space no one can hear you scream”) |
| 2 | B | Fee to avoid prison, noun; scoop water out of a ship, or abandon, verb |
| 1 | B | Court guard |
| 1 | B | Head-hugging brimless cap with a button at the crown (propeller optional), NOT a legume |
| 1 | B | Straight, direct course between 2 points, compound (think this puzzle’s name) |
| 1 | B | Acceptance that something is true, esp. religion; noun |
| 1 | B | Holy book (starts with Genesis) |
| 2 | B | Period of 2 years, Latin plural |
| 1 | B | Strike someone roughly with a fist, slang; eldest son in "Death of a Salesman, or antagonist in “Back to the Future” |
| 1 | B | Liver secretion, or anger |
| 2 | B | Invoice, or actor Murray |
| 2 | B | Russian pancake |
| 1 | E | Can be described with words |
| 1 | E | Small, delicate, impish; as a Keebler worker, adj. |
| 1 | F | Don’t pass a test |
| 2 | F | Capable of making mistakes |
| 1 | F | Cat adj. |
| 1 | F | Medieval for feudal land or area of control; often has –DOM suffix |
| 1 | F | Small flute used with a drum in military bands, noun |
| 1 | F | Folder of related papers, or tool for smoothing edges (fingernails, e.g.), noun/verb |
| 1 | F | Of or due from a son or daughter, adj. |
| 2 | F | Add material until the container or hole is at capacity |
| 2 | F | Last one (…exam, “...Countdown”) |
| 1 | F | Impose a $ penalty (the judge…-ed him $100 for speeding) |
| 1 | F | Ornament at end or top of an object |
| 1 | F | Swing (arms) wildly |
| 1 | I | Stupid, silly, ridiculous (…questions or comments); adj. |
| 1 | I | Concave belly button, slang |
| 3 | L | Latin for lips, or lips of vagina |
| 1 | L | easily and frequently altered; unstable |
| 1 | L | Hawaiian island or porch |
| 1 | L | Put something down |
| 1 | L | Responsible by law/legally answerable; likely to do something (he's ... to get upset) |
| 2 | L | Printed slander, noun |
| 1 | L | Be in a horizontal resting position, or say something false |
| 1 | L | Bank hold on a mortgaged property, NOT tilt |
| 1 | L | Cereal Mikey prefers, board game, or “death” antonym |
| 1 | L | What a palm reader checks to see when you’ll die, or “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” friend assistance, compound |
| 2 | L | A queue, what you wait in for your turn |
| 1 | L | Cloth napkin fabric |
| 1 | N | Inexperienced person (from French) |
| 1 | N | Spike that’s hammered, noun/verb |
| 1 | N | Small, tentative chew, verb; or a snack, noun |
| 1 | N | Number of justices on Supreme Court |
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.